Well, it seems the bad weather decided to come a little early! I woke up at 6:00 and heard the weather forecast on the radio. Rain in the morning, clearing in the afternoon... I get up and look outside, and sure enough, it'd drizzling! :( Crap! So I throw on clothes and I'm out the door. It's pitch black, and I'm trying to set up the trailer so I can back the car off of it! Ramps, boards, get the cover off the car, make sure everything is out of the way on the garage floor... Thankfully I had my new exhaust so as to not wake up every person in my neighborhood!!!

So I get the car in the garage, and I head off to work. About noon, I notice it's clearing up outside, so I get brave and call the place I wanted to align it. Unfortunately they couldn't do it that afternoon, but they referred me to one of their other stores who could. I called and was told "No problem. Get it here before 4:00 and we'll get you done." Thus, at 1:30 I head home to reload the car and haul it into downtown Durham.

Now, I wasn't all that excited about having to navigate into downtown with the trailer on a Friday afternoon, but I knew if I didn't, then I wouldn't get the chance again for a while (bad weather all weekend..). When I get to the place, at least they have a big and empty parking lot where I can park and unload. Phew!

After I get all unloaded, I wait until about 3:15 for the guy to finish up another car. He does, and comes over and looks at mine and starts giving me attitude!!! "Who said I could do this car today?" That was the first of a series of questions. I should have packed up my car then and there and gone home, but noooo.... I stayed, the glutton for punishment that I am. I finally convince him that 1) his boss said he would do it, and 2) that his alignment fixture would fit my 17" wheels.

This story could get really long, but I'll condense. He bitched and whined the entire time about working on the car, saying he had another he had to finish. I gave him the specs I wanted, and he said I'd hate them, and didn't want to set them there... And then complained when he couldn't get there. My suspension requires that you remove the a-arm to adjust the threaded rods which give you move adjustment on the front and back of the upper a-arm. He didn't want to get into it... And he bitched some more.

Finally, he got the driver's side close (+0.3 degrees camber, +2.4 degrees of caster) and started on the passenger's side. He ended up at -0.4 degrees of camber and +2.0 degrees of caster and told me that was "Close enough." I just about died! I told him that was NOT close enough, and he needed to do it right. He went back to the "I don't have time" and told me I would have to bring it back to him. Hmmmm... Let's see... I hauled the thing over on a trailer, and he wants me to do it again?! I don't think so...

About the only thing he did do right was the toe. He set it to basically 0 toe, which is what I wanted. So, assuming that the camber isn't too far off (I'm not convinced that it is really what he said it was) then I shouldn't eat the tires up too badly. But still, I'm going to have to go back to somewhere to do this all over again, since he never got it right. Ugh...

So, if you are in the local Durham, NC area, I highly recommend you stay AWAY from the Durham Tire King in downtown Durham. I plan to try their store in Research Triangle Park, as I've had good luck there before with previous cars.

Thanx for reading my vent! :)