Good afternoon,

I have a 2012 G37 sedan which I bought guys at warren henry miami, almost 3 months ago. its a cpo and had 19600 miles when i purchased it and my first free courtesy oil change is due this week.

three weeks ago, I installed tien basis coilovers along with SPC front and rear camber kit. After installing the coil overs and camber kits I didn’t do any alignment because I needed my coilovers to settle down first.

A week after, I installed 20" velgen Vmb7 and adjusted my height.

this is how she looks for now.




So last Saturday, I took my car to a professional alignment shop who use hunter alignment system. At initial alignment readings alignment guy said that my car’s chassis is bent and right spindle is moved. In essence he was saying that my car cannot be aligned because it was involved in an accident and wasn’t fixed properly.

I bought the car CPO and i never expected that. I asked my dealer to have his guys look at my car and see whats going on but my dealership's frontman is on vacation for a week.

the alignment shop gave me this page i have no idea how to read.

I’m attaching the alignment reading page that the shop gave me.

can you guys help me understanding this? is it really that bad?
he didnt align my car, he said the subframe needs to be fixed and spindle is moved. i saw no sign of damage anywhere under my car.

Please help me on this one, I’m worried.

Thanks.

 

No time right now, but I'll give it a look tonight, doesn't sound good though

 

There's noting on that printout that you posted that indicates the body is damaged, just a car that needs alignment. Hopefully if anything is wrong like your guy said they'll fix it. I'm interested to see how it turns out. If a car bring CPO is worth anything or if it's just marketing that Infiniti used to sell used cars for a higher price.

I don't know anything about your dealership, but if they're like the majority of them I think they'll take issue with the aftermarket suspension parts. Maybe not. Let's see.

 

do you think that these initial alignment readings are unfixable?
ther front right camber is already maxed out to its positive and i still have -1.6.

 

You look pretty slammed with the -3.4*. If you can, put all your stock parts back on for easy diagnose at the dealership. Anyone should be able to put the car on the alignment rack and see if it's to spec. You don't want them to blame on your coilovers for the misalignment and waste your time to make another trip.

 

i dont want to have camber, i like straight tires, thats why i purchased front and rear camber kit. i am not sure :/ putting all my parts back will be really costly especially when i have to put them back afterwords. its 400x3 :/

 

The caster is in spec up to 4.9* so the left is definitely off. Everything else seems ok.

 

There's a few questions that may make it clearer (or not)

Was the car driving fine prior to the coilovers, any pulling to one side when braking or not tracking straight without any pressure on the steering wheel?

Is the steering wheel lined up straight when you're driving straight?

Did the alignment shop actually see something bent in the subframe or associated suspension parts?

Are your tires wearing properly (prior to the coilovers)?

Have you had any jarring hits to the car like a huge pothole or worse??

Was the above alignment sheet after the alignment tech tried to get it aligned, or did they just get to a point and stopped because they noticed damage? It looks like the back hasn't been adjusted at all, it's even and seems like adjusting the arms & bolts should get that in.

If things seemed fine prior to the coilovers w/ good treadwear and none of the above issues were you supervising the coilover install?

It's possible the coilover install wasn't done properly, something not seated correctly, etc causing an uneven mount resulting in the control arms being off kilter.

There's many variables in suspension/alignment problems, very hard to ID over the internet. Member "TVPostSound" is (or was) an alignment/supsension specialist so he's be a good guy to PM.

That said, I think I'd get teh car on a lift and just give it a good look, see if there's any obvious signs of damage, if this occurred prior to your purchase maybe there's some signs of what occured.

And maybe, just maybe it may be something simple like others above have mentioned, or maybe just replacing something like a bent control arm may get everything back in order.

 

car was driving normally before coilover and camber install. Right after the coilover install i realized that when I brake my steering pulls to the left, its still doing it but its not as much as it was right after i install coilovers. car still drives relatively straight and it starts pulling left after 6-7 seconds of no hands on steering (my way of testing alignment)
tires were wearing normally on stock system.
there was no bend / damage or any sign of accident what so ever under my car.
the mechanic made me feel the location of front camber arms, they were fully out on both sides yet the gap between fender and one side tire was different from the other by a very small margin.
Over here we dont have any potholes and I did not slam my car on any speed breaker :/
the tech didn't do anything. he tested my car and told me this, gave me the spec sheet and sent me to the dealership.

you made a point here.. i dont know why my car started pulling left when i brake?
this started right after the install :/

 

It looks like the rear of your car is fine, just needs to be aligned.

If the tech didn't attempt to adjust anything then it's possible that one or both of the front camber arms are in need of full adjustment. Having the caster & toe far off in the left front means either that arm just needs to be adjusted or there's been damage to that area or that coilover wasn't installed properly. Since your car seemed to perform as it should prior to the coilover install it would seem logical that something occurred during the install that's causing these problems. Either that or the shop isn't well versed in setting up aftermarket camber kits.

There's only a couple shops in my town that will align cars w/ aftermarket kits and lowered suspensions. It's not uncommon to find shops that aren't very good when it comes to cars that are no longer OEM setups. Just food for thought.

IMO, you should have seen symptoms of "damage" if it occurred prior to the coilover install, either driving characteristics or tread wear if it is so bad that they can't get it aligned.

 

I showed this thread to my alignment shop guy and he said that beside camber is way too off i also have caster issue, which he said is not adjustable. he said that only two options can cause cambers to be negative, that is, the strut is bent or that side of car suffered accident, causing spindle to be like \ <--- this.

 

You know what else causes excessive negative camber? Lowering your car any significant amount. Also, caster is not adjustable with the OEM upper arms but it is with the SPC ones.

 

With the SPC arms caster IS adjustable, here's the instruction sheet~
http://www.spcalignment.com/instruct...30-INS_WEB.pdf
Unfortunately a lot of shops don't want to hassle with doing all the work required to get it right.

You had quite a few suspension parts installed at once, and not noticing any problems prior it sure sounds like something wasn't installed properly or adjusted correctly.
FWIW there's also a way to install the ball joint on the front a-arm wrong, the stamped SPC logo on the brass collar needs to face the outside of the car.
G/L getting this corrected, sucks you're having to deal w/ this and if there was prior damage, well that takes the cake

 

puffff that should solve my issue. i couldn't spot any damage what so ever under my car. its just the caster was off and my alignment shop dude said subframe is not straight. i will go back today and show him instructions. i hope i get it fixed today. will update you guys! thanks once again!

ps: caster is adjustable by +/- 1* only... is that enough?

 

If the ball joint was set neutral (which it probably was) then you have a degree of adjustment either way, so getting it to 5 will be fine. Mine is out of spec quite a bit (5.5) but is balanced on both sides and drives great. Having too much caster just makes it harder to get your wheels to turn off center, better than having too little caster which makes your wheels wander, rather than lock on center.