Hello,

I just replaced my 17'' OEM wheels with new 19'' Wheels today, and when I was getting them aligned, they couldn't fix the camber in the back. They said that I may have bad shocks, which leads to the bad camber. I didn't lower the car or anything, but I shouldn't need a camber kit to upgrade to 19'' right? So does that mean they're right and that I need new shocks? It may explain why my car hasn't been feeling so smooth lately either.

Do you guys recommend Tokico? I can't afford anything expensive right now, thanks.

P.S. My car has 96,000 miles on it.... bought it at 50k and I haven't changed the shocks yet. My steering wheel shakes a little more than usual after switching to 19's. It can't be the alignment since I just got it aligned. Can someone help me out? Thanks!

Find out how far off spec your camber currently is. If shocks are bad, push down on the supposed bad corner to see if your car bounces excessively.

Should I take my car back in for a wheel balance? They didn't balance the wheels with my car there, so maybe that could have been the problem? Or maybe they didn't balance it right at all.

do you have a photocopy of your before/after alignment specs ??
-GP-

Hi. The fronts were all aligned within the green area, but the rears all ended with approx. 1* negative. However, I dug deeper into this forum and found out that our cars were made to have negative camber. Maybe the shop didn't know that and made this into a bigger deal than I thought.

I took my wheels in for rebalance today, and WOW it was a difference compared to what the previous shop did. They completely messed up the balance. America Tire's took care of me very well and fixed the problem for free.

I almost had to buy brand new shocks and pay for labor to get it replaced. If it wasn't for the search feature of this forum, I would have wasted unnecessary money.

For everyone in San Jose, I recommend America Tire's located on Brokaw.... EXCELLENT wheel shop.

Shocks usually are pretty weak and worn by 60k or 4 years , however they don't leak until later.

Impossible to measure the 50% decline in rebound stiffness on the car.
Resistance to upward expansion.......................downward compression is usually last parameter to weaken.