Heads Up: Firestone Lifetime Alignments
09-03-2011, 05:35 PM
#1
Heads Up: Firestone Lifetime Alignments Hey guys, just an FYI - if you have a Firestone Lifetime Alignment and set your car to custom alignment specifications, Firestone will no longer align your car to your specifications. They will ONLY align the car to what the manufacturer specifications are in their system. This policy of theirs took effect in the beginning of 2011. To top it off, the diagrams they have in their internal reference system of the 4th gen F-body front suspension components is totally wrong. The diagrams depict the type of front suspension/wheel adjustment that an E46 BMW M3 has.
Last edited by ZexGX; 09-03-2011 at 05:41 PM.
09-04-2011, 12:54 PM
#4
Keep in mind not every store has the exact same alignment machine. I work for a firstone sister store (tires plus), I know our system diagrams show an Fbody. Also I know our specs are correct, at least they must be since I got 35k miles out of 40k tire without rotating.
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09-05-2011, 12:06 AM
#10
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I was essentially saying what leadfoot said. Its a crap deal the minute you walk in the door and I could expect them to not align YOUR car to YOUR specs. And saying a post is worthless while using a post that is worthless is quite hypocritical wouldn't ya say? Me being a mod has nothing to do with anything 
09-05-2011, 06:50 AM
#11
Maybe I should clarify what I was getting at....yes, it's a marketing gimmick, and they hope that they'll never have to align your car more than once, hence the $99, or whatever it is.
The "gimmick" is that they'll align the car to "factory specs", which generally are formulated to give you decent handling, decent fuel mileage (less rolling resistance), and decent tire wear. Therefore, they document the mileage at which your car was aligned, and if you complain about the tires wearing out, they have the opportunity to tell you that you've driven maybe 20,000 miles, "so what do you expect"?
However, if you want some really aggressive set-up put into the car, so you can "race the orange cones" on the weekends, and then go in to them at the end of the summer and tell them the tires are wearing funny, and it needs to be realigned, at no charge, of course, they really don't want to deal with that....
The "gimmick" is that they'll align the car to "factory specs", which generally are formulated to give you decent handling, decent fuel mileage (less rolling resistance), and decent tire wear. Therefore, they document the mileage at which your car was aligned, and if you complain about the tires wearing out, they have the opportunity to tell you that you've driven maybe 20,000 miles, "so what do you expect"?
However, if you want some really aggressive set-up put into the car, so you can "race the orange cones" on the weekends, and then go in to them at the end of the summer and tell them the tires are wearing funny, and it needs to be realigned, at no charge, of course, they really don't want to deal with that....
09-05-2011, 12:32 PM
#12
I really don't think you guys understand what the deal was here. I thought more of you in the suspension section would understand how much of an impact an aggressive alignment can do to your cars handling abilities, but I guessed wrong.
1) Firestone used to offer a lifetime alignment package without any major stipulations as to what alignment specs were used
2) Road racers and autocross guys would purchase these lifetime alignment packages
3) Said racers would take their cars in to Firestone to get custom alignments put on/modified, sometimes taking 2x the amount of time as a normal factory alignment due to technicians being unskilled (no surprise at most Firestones) and not knowing the most effective methods to get the job done quickly.
4) Managers/corporate noticed this trend of people using lifetime alignments for aggressive non-standard time-consuming alignments
5) Corporate introduced a new policy in 2011 stating that for lifetime alignments, they will only do it to the factory specs in the machine, stating it was for tire wear liability. Sure. It wasn't because of the hundreds/thousands of people using them for yearly custom alignment changes that soaked up man-hours.
So like I said, just a heads-up that corporate caught on.
1) Firestone used to offer a lifetime alignment package without any major stipulations as to what alignment specs were used
2) Road racers and autocross guys would purchase these lifetime alignment packages
3) Said racers would take their cars in to Firestone to get custom alignments put on/modified, sometimes taking 2x the amount of time as a normal factory alignment due to technicians being unskilled (no surprise at most Firestones) and not knowing the most effective methods to get the job done quickly.
4) Managers/corporate noticed this trend of people using lifetime alignments for aggressive non-standard time-consuming alignments
5) Corporate introduced a new policy in 2011 stating that for lifetime alignments, they will only do it to the factory specs in the machine, stating it was for tire wear liability. Sure. It wasn't because of the hundreds/thousands of people using them for yearly custom alignment changes that soaked up man-hours.
So like I said, just a heads-up that corporate caught on.
09-05-2011, 03:02 PM
#14
Sears had an issue with weekend racers or autocross/road racers getting their car aligned to custom specs on friday, then back to factory sunday or monday. This is with just the standard 6 month 6000 mile warranty as well. So i understand the issue.
All i know is if i see this same guy with his damn loud mazda mx-2000 or whatever it is twice in the same weekend again, its not gonna be good.
now we will align it to whatever specs you want INITIALLY, and we will only allow it to those specs until the warranty is up, wanna go back to stock specs? Gotta pay up.
Doesn't cover lifetime alignments, but if you got a lifetime alignment at sears you're probably so old it wont matter much to us.
All i know is if i see this same guy with his damn loud mazda mx-2000 or whatever it is twice in the same weekend again, its not gonna be good.
now we will align it to whatever specs you want INITIALLY, and we will only allow it to those specs until the warranty is up, wanna go back to stock specs? Gotta pay up.
Doesn't cover lifetime alignments, but if you got a lifetime alignment at sears you're probably so old it wont matter much to us.
09-05-2011, 03:57 PM
#15
I really don't think you guys understand what the deal was here. I thought more of you in the suspension section would understand how much of an impact an aggressive alignment can do to your cars handling abilities, but I guessed wrong.
1) Firestone used to offer a lifetime alignment package without any major stipulations as to what alignment specs were used
2) Road racers and autocross guys would purchase these lifetime alignment packages
3) Said racers would take their cars in to Firestone to get custom alignments put on/modified, sometimes taking 2x the amount of time as a normal factory alignment due to technicians being unskilled (no surprise at most Firestones) and not knowing the most effective methods to get the job done quickly.
4) Managers/corporate noticed this trend of people using lifetime alignments for aggressive non-standard time-consuming alignments
5) Corporate introduced a new policy in 2011 stating that for lifetime alignments, they will only do it to the factory specs in the machine, stating it was for tire wear liability. Sure. It wasn't because of the hundreds/thousands of people using them for yearly custom alignment changes that soaked up man-hours.
So like I said, just a heads-up that corporate caught on.
1) Firestone used to offer a lifetime alignment package without any major stipulations as to what alignment specs were used
2) Road racers and autocross guys would purchase these lifetime alignment packages
3) Said racers would take their cars in to Firestone to get custom alignments put on/modified, sometimes taking 2x the amount of time as a normal factory alignment due to technicians being unskilled (no surprise at most Firestones) and not knowing the most effective methods to get the job done quickly.
4) Managers/corporate noticed this trend of people using lifetime alignments for aggressive non-standard time-consuming alignments
5) Corporate introduced a new policy in 2011 stating that for lifetime alignments, they will only do it to the factory specs in the machine, stating it was for tire wear liability. Sure. It wasn't because of the hundreds/thousands of people using them for yearly custom alignment changes that soaked up man-hours.
So like I said, just a heads-up that corporate caught on.
Not the case at all!!
We "get it", we were just not sure that YOU knew why the policy was changed.....
