I am taking the car back tommorow, hopefully he does not charge me, but hey I wont be able to stop thinking about it. Its been about 2 weeks since the alignment, its been driving me nuts trying to figure out a way to measure this.

 

The sterring wheel wasn't centered during the alignment.

The Hunter aligner's with the mirror targets are not the only system that runs automatically "centers" the wheel. The conventional optical systems do the same, the heads are the difference.

Even with the automatic feature it's still up to the tech to use the machine to center the wheel correctly.

You can fix the off center wheel without re-aligning the car, by measuring how far off center the wheel is and them turning the tie rod ends the correct # of flats to center. there is even a Honda TSB procedure how to.

 

Hmm, any link to the how to for the tie rod adjustment Slows2k?

What do you mean by # of flats? I think I would just rather have my alignment guy handle it.

 

Since they screwed it up, let them do it

 

...especially for someone who doesn't know what "flats" are (no offense intended, I don't expect normal people know). Although it sounds easy to turn same # of flats but different direction on each tie rod, it can be quite easily screwed up in the process by a normal person. If not careful enough, it's easy to shift the desired position on the tie-rod when it moves with the lock nut in the final lock down procedure.

 

Race Miata, your right and no offense taken, sounds too tedious and then that would really be a fun situation to explain to my alignment guy when I would have to get it fixed.

 

I had posted the directions in the R&C forum a long time ago,you may be able to find them there. I used to have the PDF on file, but lost it when my PC fried itself.

Now that I'm using a Mac that doesn't break, I can't access Honda's IN network from home, because they only support IE. The Mac version if IE doesn't load the pages correctly either, I've tried.

Basically you put a tape strip on the steering wheel and the column. Put a line on both pieces of tape with the steering wheel centered. Drive the car to figure out how far off center the wheel is in mm.

To recenter the wheel, you have to turn the tie rod ends the equal amount in the same direction, counting the "flats" where the wrench turns the tie rod. 1 "flat" us approx 1mm at the wheel.

 

this is what I had the tech do when they f'd up the centering of my wheel. Actually took them two tries to get it right though. don't think I'll be going back ther ein the future.. I've had better luck at town fair tire

 

All fixed. Tech put it back up on the lift and adjusted everything and now its perfect. Thanks for all the help guys.

 

Thanks for keeping us posted!