LightKiosk

What I've done in the front

Upper & lower control arms, ball joints, calipers, sway bar end links, inner & outer tie rod ends with new steering rack boots.

What I did in the rear

Both toe/tracker arms on each side, as well as the rear upper control arms for camber.

I took the car for alignment this morning and it was the best alignment I've gotten on this car. The brakes were a bit spongy so I got them bled at Brakes Plus, now they're perfect and hard as a rock.

Issue

When driving over uneven surfaces or little bumps, the car agressively sways left-and-right, jolting my body left-and-right due to the force. I really can't think of what can be causing this as it was no issue before I did all the suspension work, and the alignment afterwards is perfect.

gatrhumpy

iTrader: (1)

See if any bolts are loose or get it inspected.

LightKiosk

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I'm going to bring it in to a different Firestone tomorrow to see if a bolt is loose that makes the alignment go out of whack. Outside of that I have no idea as to what it can be.

sbstnce

please don't take this car to firestone.

Jackass

Most useless post ever.

t-rd

That's the whole problem right there, getting suspension done at Firestone.

Jackass

I take it back...this one may win.

You really think all Firestones are bad? That is like saying all Dealerships are bad. All independent shops are good right? It's all about who the local owner/manager are and how they handle their employees. I have had good and bad experiences are Firestones, dealerships, and local indy shops. Putting a blanket statement that all Firestones are bad is just plain stupid. Heck, I used to have great luck with getting basic maintenance taken care of at my local NTB. I found one that had a manager who was open to non-standard requests, allowed customers to make specific fluid requirements, and didn't charge an arm and a leg for it. They are who handled my fluid changes with the GM/Delco juice over the years. They asked why I wanted that stuff, said no problem, sourced the fluid from the local Chevy dealer, and swapped it out for me.

I'm sure there are plenty of these locations that are run by idiots and and staffed by idiots...but pretty sure that risk applies to any shop out there.

LightKiosk

Not sure how a Firestone argument came about, but for clarification I got my suspension done at a local shop with fantastic reviews, not Firestone.

Anyways I drove around, the first Firestone I originally took my car to refused to test drive the car or put it back on the rack which pissed me off but whatever. I drove to another one that was a bit more open, and as I mentioned in the OP, it's all adjustable stuff. To put it simply, Firestone claimed they cannot adjust the top control arm, and I still need to get the aftermarket one on the drivers side. My tires are apparently shot as well so I got some online that are on the way.

To sum it up: Tires are shot, need to install upper adjustable control arm on drivers side to match passenger side as Firestone apparently cannot mess with rear adjustable upper control arms, and I need to take it somewhere that can get it all squared in with adjustable stuff on it.

I'm open to any suggestions on shops that can align a vehicle with all adjustable arms.

LightKiosk

As an update, I took the adjustable arm that has yet to be installed by a local Brakes Plus and asked the guy if they can get it all spec'd in. Didn't even take him a second to say yep, and that Firestone should've been able to do the same, but for whatever reason they refused to touch it.

The lifetime alignment with Firestone has gotten me nothing but the runaround and refusal to get my car properly aligned, but oh well, as long as it's fixed in the end that's all that matters. I should also mention the second Firestone tech found my passenger adjustable control arm nut loose from the first tech.

t-rd

Both Firestone and NTB failed me miserably. I have not gone back to both places ever again.

A kid at Firestone dropped a wrench onto the battery, connecting + and - terminals letting out a huge spark plus pop -> I learned how to change a car battery shortly after that. That was more than 15 years ago
For NTB, I had lifetime alignment with them and the guy did not know how to align it correctly. I went back 3 times to readjust, every single time coming out with steering wheel crooked. I eventually took it to Honda for a proper alignment.

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Regardless of the above. State which arms exactly are the adjustable ones you used. I had ingalls engineering lower control arms and the BUSHINGS WERE SOFT AS HELL. This is well documented in the suspension/wheel discussion. I had a fight with Ingalls with no results back, I even sent the arms over to their office for inspection.

LightKiosk

Man you might be on to something about these arms. They look awfully similar to those Ingalls arms.



Would such soft bushings make the rear end feel like it's hopping all over the place?

LightKiosk

Would these arms from RockAuto be a better fit to replace the arms above?

t-rd

Those look just about identical to Ingalls Engineering's arms. This problem is nothing new, and you are just late to the game. Either you use hard race lower control arms or you use SPC upper control arms. We discussed this more than 3 years ago. Again, I had a fight with Ingalls Engineering and will never use their products again.

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-t...-864705/page2/

I swapped those out years ago and never looked back. They made the rear end very soft and wobbly around corners. Are you on lowered suspension and why did you do all 3 arms? Unless the car sits VERY LOW, you only need the upper adjustable control arm to adjust the camber and use the OEM eccentric bolt for toe adjustment. And you need to use SPC upper control arm. Sorry you wasted your money but you need to ditch those arms.

LightKiosk

Looking back it seems I should've gotten OEM, but after changing them out yesterday... let me just quote myself from the other thread: