so i took my civic to get an "alignment" today, the guy said it was gona take about an hour at adirondack tire. well i just found out that once the guy was done, he decided he was gona take my car for a spin around the block, apparently eving pretty high befor shifting. it cost me $84, and the bill says "front end alignmet". i told him i just had it lowerd and needed a "alignmet". yeah, well im gona go back and see if they did the rear or not. cuz sears chraged $60 for all 4, and im gona tell the guy that i hop he had a nice joy ride in my car. i guess now whenever i go to these places i gotta babysit..bs in my opinion

 

i work at sears as well. i think they do a lot more work and are a lot cheaper then most places out there.

 

Yes $84 should be for a 4-wheel alignment. Front-end can run between $40 to $80, and four-wheel $60 to $120, with the latter often including a laser frame alignment check, so it's in the ballpark. As for the test drive, the tech is SUPOSED to drive the car before and after to check the results and for any new problems.

 

Most alignment machines prepare a before and after printout of the various alignment measurements for the customer. Providing some evidence that alignment was actually done.

 

yeah, i know they have to drive it, but shifting at about 6g is how they do it?..and when i went to sears, i got a print out sheet, but at this place, i got just a yellow peice of paper saying i paid $84.

 

sears is a bigger company

 

yeah i know what you mean. When i go to les schwab (get it free) each time when they start me car they just have to rev up the engine. One of these days i'm just going to kindly walk over and tell the dude, stop wasting my gas. No need to start the car and then start revving it.

 

haha, yeah i dont get it. you want to hear a b20 or a b18 rev up, or ajust a good motor in general, thengo out and buy one of your own, dont mess with other ppls.

 

I've been driving for 50 years and have owned over 140 different cars. Obviously, many of them have had alignments performed. I can honestly say that I CAN'T REMEMBER EVEN ONE TIME when my car was taken for a test ride after the alignment was performed. And mk 378 is correct....you should get a print-out showing specifically the degree to which the alignment was corrected. If they didn't provide you with one, then they're probably not using up-tp-date alignment machines.

 

I had my EP3 aligned at an independant shop, the 1990 Civic DX aligned at the Honda dealer, and a 1980 Rabbit aligned at Canadian Tire; each and every time the car was test-driven after the job, and except for CT, before the alignment, and each time I had a readout.

Things to look for on the test drive are steering play and stiffness,power steering performance -looking for slipping belts or "groaning," any catching of steering parts through lock to lock rotation of the wheel, and noises from the suspension. Thus sayeth the Honda mechanic. Of COURSE the car has to be test driven in the course of wheel alignment!!