Alignment issues?

I took my car in saturday for an oil change and they told me I needed new front tires. I have only 3500 miles on the car and was very suprised to see the front right in particular to be so worn out because i dont drive very hard. I took it in again yesterday and got two new front tires for free, and they told me that the tires wore so fast because the car was out of alignment. I denied this because the car had been aligned less then 3 months earlier and i swerve for every pothole and take speeds bumps at less than five mph. So they told me it was probably from "dogging" the car. I usually drive slow but somtimes I do take turns fast which i guess could account for the fast tire wear, but i didnt think alignment. So is this true that a MS6 or any car can be knocked out alignment this easily? I am not complaining though because the alignment and tires were free.

Same issue, except with the front left. I'm putting springs on this weekend, and then will get it aligned afterwards.

The surprising thing is that I'm really careful with potholes and bumps, too....so I'm surprised to see the alignment out already..

My rear drivers side wheel is always the first to get out of alignment. In fact I have had my steering wheel get off 3 times since ive had it and come to find out its the rear drivers side that tucks in after any hard bump I hit in the road. Front wheels stay in perfect camber its the toe that gets off after a while and eats up the insides.

BADFISH6 said:

...I took it in again yesterday and got two new front tires for free....

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keep in mind that awd requires all four to be changed if the differences falls out of spec range...

Qwik6 said:

My rear drivers side wheel is always the first to get out of alignment. In fact I have had my steering wheel get off 3 times since ive had it and come to find out its the rear drivers side that tucks in after any hard bump I hit in the road. Front wheels stay in perfect camber its the toe that gets off after a while and eats up the insides.

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Your car has a real problem with the left rear if this is true. You may have loose or stripped toe alignment link. There are large rivets that connect the hub carrier to the trailing link as well. I would inspect and find the real cause of your alignment problem.

If the associated bolts are tight, the only way a car (any car) can be "knocked out" of alignment is if the structure or suspension components are physically bent. If this occurs from a road impact, they need to be replaced, not the car re-aligned to compensate.

One other parts issue that can affect alignment is the bushings themselves. As the car ages, the rubber will tend to harden and transmit more road noise and vibration to the chassis. When they are hard enough, they will crack with a large enough impact and must be replaced.

The fact is that if you align a car on a rack, take it off, put it back and install all the equipment, the numbers will more than likley be different. Done it too many times. The best way you can set up a car to be consistent is via manual equipment, poly bushings and painstaking adjustment to exact values.

Yea. I think the fact that its dropped about 2-3 inches with stock struts doesnt help. Im gonna be taking it to another shop here soon that is the best one around. The one im dealing with now I have a 3 year warranty. So anytime I want to bring it in for an alignment its free. So they dont care whether its right or not. I took it in one time I hit a hard bump in the road. The rear drivers side wheel was litterally twisted in sideways. Dropped it off and came back later and they said it was fixed. Looked at it and the wheel was still twisted. Come to find out they never put the car on the lift because "It was too low" and said I had modified the suspension since last time I brought it. They never told me that when I picked it up but did when I called them back saying the car was still pulling hard to the side. They did fix the rear where it was straight but it was still tucked a little with negative camber. Said it was in perfect alignment. So I havent taken it back since.