As I was waiting in the tire store today, I started thinking about front end alignments. It seems to me that it would not be in the best interest of a store that sells tires to do a good job of aligning the front end. They would be much better suited doing a crappy job, so that the tires wear out faster, thus generating repeat business. I called the local chrysler dealer, and their machine cannot do a crossfire. Where would you take it that doesn't have a vested interest in doing a poor job?

 

I've been taking mine to a dedicated "Performance Shop" for non-warranty work. They can handle large rims and strange camber setups.

 

I just called the dealership and spoke with their lone crossfire tech, and he said an alignment is not needed unless a component has been replaced.

 

I have 50K miles on my car. I changed the tires and never did an allignment. Everything feels great and handles the same as I bought it. No pulling to the side. I figure, why mess with it if everything is ok. Right?

 

You are correct in a sense, but things like camber and toe-in or out do not affect how the car drives in a straight line but will eventually eat up the tires. The best thing to do is to keep an eye out for strange wear patterns on the tires. Such as it wearing more on the inside edge rather than the outside and vise-versa. Tire wear patterns will tell if you need an alignment.

That's just my Dos Centavos

 

Hey stogey-- yeah, my tires do wear on the inside but no the outside. the alignment process is hairy!! 2 alignment kits are needed and another "tool" that most dealerships dont have. I'm currently going through this deal to find someone credible to do an alignment on my car. a dealership is currently waiting for an "extension rod" to come in and they think it could be the last peice of the puzzle to perform an alignment on the crossfire. i sure hope so! at this point the cost ranges for this to be performed is continuously coming up for around 100-200$$ so not too bad. cheaper than buying new front end tires like i did last year! haha

 

Well, while at the Dragon this past spring, I noticed the inside part of my left tire was completely worn down due to alignment issues (and really scared the h#*! out me after I saw it). When I had the tires replaced on the way back home, the tire shop aligned all four wheels as they were all a little out of whack (especially the front wheels in my case). Since then, I have had good wear on the tires.

 

I don't know that I necessarily agree that a tire shop would intentionally do a bad job aligning your car. After all, why would anyone go back to them if they did such a bad job. I had mine done by a tire shop, and they did a nice job. If they did a bad job, I would never go back to them.

 

Oops! Live and learn!

Les

 

I just finished having my alignment done at a shop that advertises on the local car forum. The toe and camber was way out on the passenger side and I only have 2000 miles on the car. I wanted as much negative camber as possible for the track but on that problem side they couldn't get much. So they installed the camber kit, only on the passenger side and I ended up with a negative camber of 1.6 on the passenger side and 1.9 on the drivers side. 1.6 was with the camber kit and 1.9 was without it. Just goes to show how different the two sides can be on a car that has no real camber adjustment. As to any shop doing a bad alignment on purpose, I really doubt it. Having lazy or negligent employees is the usual reason for bad work.

Les

 

I specifically asked my local dealer about alignment. They said they have all the tools and special chamber gage for the XF. The cost is $160. It is about 1.5 hours west of Carmel.

 

If not the dealership, where do owners take their XFs for alignments?

Monty

 

I took mine to NTB.

 

had a bad tire wear problem last summer, took my car to a goodyear dealer who replaced the tires with F1's and did an alignment, which they stated it was way out of align. I had 6k in mileage. took back a few weeks ago and had him check it and it again, and it was slightly out of aligment 2k miles later. I now going to another shop this weekend to have them check out the car and what could be causing this issue.

 

I took mine to an NTB...

luckily for me they said they could only adjust the toe on the front and and nothing on the rear... i was not happy...

and frankly am still not happy... i am gonna put a camber kit on front and rear soon... hopefully next week.

 

Just had new tires installed due to extreme wear on the front inside toes and went to an independent alignment shop. The specs show -1.5 to -0.9 degrees for front camber. Mine are at -1.4 as is. Had to have some toe adjustments on both front and rear.

What is a good setting for front camber?

Thanks.

P.S. - my old tires were the GY Eagle F-1s and they stank! Very loud, rough, and poor wear. I have the Hankook V12s and they are quiet and smooth. We'll see how they wear.

 

I too feared problems with alignment. Previous tires had cupping and were extremely loud. Replaced them with General Extremes -- nice and quiet. Had alignment at local dealer. Corrected caster problems in front. Everything now in the green except camber on rear wheels. The driverside is - 1.8 which the dealer flagged as being in the red, outside parameters. The passenger side was -1.6 in the yellow as on the margin of parameters. But the Crossfire service manual says normal range on camber is to -1.8. I have already ordered the more adjustable stainless steel camber arms. Should I go ahead and have the new arms installed and back off on the camber to -1.0 or so or am I ok with the current settings.

 

I agree!
In fact, our tire & service centers have just started a new campaign to sell alignments aggressively. Plus, if you do notice unusual wear on your tires we'll redo the alignment (barring anything else like bad front end parts) for free.
If we want our customers to come back to buy our tires we had darn well better do the best job we can!

 

I Agree!! As I bought a life time alignment at Firestone for $180 something 2 years ago and I do a lot of highway driving and don’t take turns as fast as I did on my first set of tires and these look all F*** UP!! I then took it a shop owned by a forum member and was told how messed up my alignment really was. Now keep in mind I had an alignment done 2 weeks prior at a Firestone in Savannah GA... I then drive up I-95 for 700+ miles and take my car to LDG Automotive (LDG Automotive Specialists) which is located 1.5 hours from my home in MD when Jeff told me why my front tires were wearing faster on the outer edge is because the tires were pointing in (evenly) on both sides they fix it and I happily pay and drive home before the large snow hit DC the first time. It feels the same when I drive it but when I left to go back to GA my gas mileage improved by 3mpg!! I got 25.5mpg from GA-DC and 28.5mpg from DC-GA with cruse on both ways at 80mph... and I hit 2 hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way back to GA. Needless to say I found the only shop that will I allow to touch my car.

Thanks again Jeff!!!

 

Not that I would want to see the price tag, but I would assume that a Mercedes dealer would have the alignment tools since this is basically an SLK320. Experience, anyone?