hi,
was wondering, if i take my car to a shop for an alignment, do they need to know something extra then the other cars because of our negative camber?

my tires are wearing on the inside again and i want to get an alignment done, could someone that has gotten an alignment done before on the coupe tell me everything i need to know? (or everything i need to tell them)

thanks a bunch

 

anyone?

 

It is inevitable that you will get more wear on the inside portions of the tire because of negative camber. The issue is, are all of the wheels aligned, and do you want more or less camber?

 

Wheel Aligment shops usually have software that will tell it factory specs and if your out of spec.

The only place I trust with my aligment on my car in NJ is Bob's wheels in Hawthorne, NJ.

I don't think you have to tell the shop more than just saying you need a wheel aligment.

 

they should have all the data they need to do any car's alignment

since everyone complains about inside tire wear, and they don't drive like they are on the track every day.. wouln't you want to modiy the camber a bit? to avoid the inside tire wear?

not sure but is camber adjustable on these cars. if so, instead of setting camber to factory specs, have them dial in something not so agressive thereby saving your tires. know that you won't pull .87 G's on the skidpad test.

 

+1 for shops having all of the data. They should be able to align it according to factory specs. But the problem is that the factory specs suck, and have it sitting at negative camber anyways. The factory camber is adjustable but not by much. To solve this problem you need to go aftermarket.

 

I seriously wouldn't count on the shops knowing our problem. My service guy at Infinit dealership claimed he's not aware of any problems, so I would most definitely mention to whoever is in charge and then repeat the same thing to whoever is working on my car that the reason I'm doing this is because my tires are wearing on the inside.
Knowing that the alignment is not gonna improve the wear much, I asked my dealer to rotate the tires for now (rotate from side to side, than demount and remount the tire, thus having the old inside-left now outside-right). Good luck. I will probably do the alignment before winter anyway.

 

^ I take it that you are not running directional tires. Because if you were you would not be able to rotate from side to side.

 

Well I have a lifetime alignment at firestone, but I havent used it yet. I went to the dealer and got all the specs for the alignment, so I can check it against the data Firestone has. The factory specs have a range with a max, min and nominal values. So its adjustable within a range. But they had other notes on the specs like "do not use rolling compensation method, use jacking compensation methid" etc. So I will have to talk to the firestone ppl to see if they know how to do all the specifics mentioned in the factory alignment procedure.

 

Personally, I avoid contract, lifetime warranties, etc. My experience has been best with competent independent shops. Some are 'local chains' (Wheel Works in the bay area comes to mind). But with the caliber of this type of vehicle I would do all tire, alignment, and brake work with folks who do a lot of business with performance and sports cars, and avoid larger chains and dealerships. "an alignment is the same anywhere" does not float with me. I have 'felt' the difference on more than one occassion.

 

I AM running directional OEM 18s. If you read my post carefully you will see the answer on how to rotate directional tires.

 

Ah, I need to read more carefully next time.

 

There is no adjustment on Camber or Castor for any G35 regardless of year. Therefore, other than going for a camber kit, expect to have inside front tire wear. This issue is ongoing and although is not acceptable, it will continue unless there is a TSB from Infiniti which is highly doubtfull. Your only recourse as mentioned above is to dismount your front tires, flip them around and put them on the other side of your car. This will at least give you some extra miles but will not resolve the inside feathering issue. If you own a G35 coupe with aggressive tread directional tires, expect front feathering. I do the front dismount routine every 3,500 miles on my Avons.

 

boca: Is this true about the rear camber too? my stock 18" rears wore evenly but when I put the 19"x10" rims on the rear I can see negative camber. I was going to take it in to the dealer to have the dial out the negative camber. If this cannot be done, then I'll cancel my appointment.

 

I just had an alignment done last week. It looked like most people on here had good luck with Firestone, so I went to the local one and went ahead with the lifetime deal as well. The one time alignment is $65 and the lifetime is around $160. With the rate at which these cars burn through tires, I figured this to be a no-brainer. My car was pulling to the left actually, and they seemed to have corrected it just fine. The first tech wasn't sure if they could get it up on their rack, but they managed no problem. My car is still stock height with stock 18's.

I can post my numbers when I get home if you are interested. Took them about an hour with an appointment.