Before I droped my car off at Frankel Acura for the maintaince required light I had had new tires and an alignment done.

Being instilled with my fathers paranoia I took a pic of the odometer with my cell phone before handing them the keys. They said the alignment and putting new tires on would take 2 hours so I went and walked up the street and shoot pool for an hour or so before my wife met me after work and we went out to Chik-Fil-A for dinner. At this point I've killed about an hour & 45 min so I go back to check on the car. There just finishing up balancing the front tires so I pay and wait the last 10 min for them to finish.

I check everything out for scratches, dents, ect... and it's all good but when I get in the car I see that 6 miles have been added to the odometer.

I know nothing about alignments but would there be any reason for 6 miles to be added to the car or did they take a joy ride while I was away?

 

coffee run?

 

having 6 miles on your car after an alignment is normal.....

once they do the alignment they have to check to make sure it's ok... (mainly the caster)... since it does give people/shops problems if they haven't worked on an s2k before...

 

Hopefully moparacker will comment in this thread, as he has been a tech for quite some time working at different dealership.

From what I have seen, working at a dealership it can vary from dealership to dealership. However, every time I had my vehicle aligned the tech drove it just before and just after to see what was going on with the vehicle and whether it was fixed or not. Typically he put about 4-5 miles on my car.

 

Uh, yes driving is normal, but wouldn't a shop balance the tires first and then do the alignment? Granted, balancing the tires won't affect the alignment, but it might have an affect on how the car rolled during the test drive.

Example: Tires are out of balance. Alignment is done. Test drive. Car shudders. Is it the alignment or tires? So you balance tires and drive it again.

If you balance the tires first, you can eliminate that variable immediately. Since you did not see them drive it again, that strikes me odd. Also, you need to get to a place where the car can get up to speed, so maybe the freeway is a small jaunt from the shop.

 

This is normal.

 

Mileage- yes. Balancing tires after alignment?

 

Unless the rookie balanced them first with the weights on the outside and they had to redo it correctly

 

Driving the car after alignment is normal, we do that at my dealer all the time. It needs to be done to check your work. Balancing the new tires after you align the car? never heard of that, the tech is smoking some good

 

did you get the alignment done at frankel? my brother is a tech there and i know he wouldn't do that, so i know it wouldn't be him. he does all my work on my car so next time you go have david morgan work on it the alignment guy at frankel i know is really good at them, so i would think maybe an rookie tech did the wheel balancing while the guy did his thing.....