[BowDown]

Anyone else have this issue? I have went to 5 places and they can't get my car on the lift. It hits the skirt on the pivot point

.

I don't know what to do... What have others done?

I might have to put my stock wheels on, pull the skirts, and front facia just to get it on the damn machine.

 

[Ollie18]

tell them to put some long pieces of wood on each side of the ramp where you enter. This way you will make it up there. That's at least what my alligment shop did...Ollie

 

[Penguini66]

I assume its a combination of the size of the tires and the ride height of the suspension? Is there any way that you could raise the body up a bit with a jack and place a wooden block at each corner to hold up the suspension. Then crawl very slowly onto the suspension rack. Then you'd have to somehow remove the blocks to align it and put the blocks in place to get it back off the rack. But, you might get away with blocks on just one end of the vehicle. I'd have to crawl under to look at the suspension to see if there is some place to do this. Just an idea.

Edit: The above idea looks way easier.

 

[foci_on66]

When I sold cars a guy came into the service dept. with the ramps from a flat bed trailer. and ran the car right up there with no problem.

 

[Tony D]

I can't believe that those shops are that lame or don't want to be bothered! Probably low-performance parts replacers!(not mechanics, they would diagnose and fix the problem).

I used to own a tire store that did many alignments of all kinds of cars and trucks. Many racecars that were much lower than any street cars. Dirt cars, drag cars, road racing cars, lifted 4x4's, street rods. This is nothing that can't be fixed with a couple of 2x8's and a swift kick in the ass for motivation!

Unfortunately, there are many in the auto service industry that take a dim view of modified cars. They may require someone to think a little about the job at hand, use the theory that they were trained with, not just rely on the machine to show "green" in spec and "red" when out of spec.

I had the good fortune to have some mechanics work for me and with me to solve many problems relating to alignments. Our motto was "we fix cheap alignments here". We tackled rebuilt wrecks, race cars, even trailers!

You can take matters into your own hands by finding a shop that caters to lowered vehicles, take the skirts off and replace after your alignment, or round up some 2x8's and take them with you. Sometimes, 4 pieces short enough to fit in the car are better than 2 longer pieces.

I hope this helps.

Tony D
Graduate of the Hunter Alignment Training Course

 

[SOON2BN-FOCUS]

I had this same problem too. I went to a few places that just looked at my car and said nope can't do it. I finally found a shop that specilized in lowered cars and trucks as well as the regular ones.
---Herb---

 

[focusbot]

Yep, I had to find a shop with a pit for alignment rather than a lift. Usually the older (more dpendable) shops have these other wise either take some boards or go buy some cheepy spring blocks at pepboys to wedge inbetween the spring coil to raise you up a bit (do you know the part?) good luck & have patience with the ignorant, they can't help it that they're stupid.

 

[Motive]

Tony D, you rule.