I installed a set of Tein CS coilovers approx a month ago. They coilovers were set to Tein's recomendations. I waited a few days and then went to Lexus for an alignment. When I picked the car up the service guy told me that they were able to bring the alignment to factory specs but it was very close. I drove the car for 2 weeks and the alignment was perfect. Good response, no drifting, straight steering wheel. Then I started to notice that the steering wheel was tilted to the left, response degraded, and the overall feel sucked. I took the car back to Lexus. I picked the car up after the service and the service associate said the camber was way off and that I shouldn't adjust the coilovers. I then told him that I never have made ny adjustments. I took the car and it drove perfectly. Today I was driving home and I started to notice that the alignment was off again. What should I do? Has anyone experienced anything like this?

-I have stock 17" rims. Im also hearing a creeking sound coming from the front passenger wheel. Im not sure if its the coilover, suspension parts or brakes.

Can anyone shed light on this situation?

JR

 

Coilovers are adjustable, duh. If you look at a coilover, the outside of the shock body is threaded and the lower spring perch is threaded and rotates up and down. When you put it where you want it, you need ot lock the position. I have seen coilovers that hve a jam nut and others where the threaded lower spring perch is split and there is a screw that, when tightened, locks the perch down. Sounds like, for whatever reason, one or more of your "adjusters" is rotating and I will be that will cause all sorts of unpleasantness. Once they are set, you might want to get down there and marke the position of the perch relative to the shock body and see if it rotates at all.

I had a creak show up after I had my bilsteins put on. Before I could take it in, it went away. Mine was just the spring getting comfortable with the perch. Your creak might go away. Then again....

 

Yes, check your lock rings.

BTW, how do you like the ride? How does it compare to stock?

 

Well I took my car to where the coilovers were installed and they checked to see if they were loose. The coilovers were tight and nothing was loose. They measured the distance from the top to the bottom of the coilover and they were both dead to what they were supposed to be.

Anyone have an idea of what is wrong. Why is the my car coming out of alignment?

Any suggestions?

JR

 

Can't say that I have looked at the front end geometry of the GS much, I guess I will spend a bit of time with the books and see what it looks like. If the coilovers are staying at their setting and the change is that much then something else in the suspension is moving. I would look at the bolts that are used to set the camber and make sure that one or more of the bolts isn't stripped or in some other way buggered up and that is why it won't hold alignment.

On the early Camaro's we set a lot of the settings with shims. That sounds like a pain in the butt but once you had the right stack and tightened everything down, it rarely moved. When you have a plate that is trapped by friction of a few bolts, things can change. Just don't know if this applies to the GS as I haven't looked at how the front end works that much but most all of the components we are talking about here had to come out when the coilovers were installed. If the problem has only started since the coilover has been installed it still looks like it was the coilover installer. Just curious but why didn't you have the installer do the alignment? When you went to Lexus for the alignment instead of having the installer do it, you set up a great "It's not my fault" contest.