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Hit potholes during road trip, and steering wheel started to feel floaty/loose. Can the front right camber be fixed by local wheel adjustment people?
- Thread starter fredjan
- Start date
Okay, did he look at the suspension bits? I'm sorry, your chart made my eyes hurt, had to remove that green.
No, he only did a basic check of things like tire tread but he did not look at the suspension
If anything in the suspension is damaged/messed up though, would fixing the front camber even help?
A good alignment shop would first jack up the car, wiggle the wheel while it's mounted to see if any of the joints and links are loose. Then use a pry bar to check all the suspension bushings to see if any of them seem to be torn or are allowing too much movement.
After that they'll then check the alignment and determine what needs to be adjusted.
From what you said I have my doubts if they did the proper checks or if they knew all the adjustments available to a Model 3.
Well... I'm not sure if they even jacked up the car properly, so I'm taking my car to the nearest service center and hopefully *they* can figure it out
It's a little disheartening to realize so many shops are dumb enough to leave money on the table considering there are only going to be more and more Teslas on the road. I had a guy refuse to align my M3 because he said if it doesn't have the latest software update and he tries to align the wheels it will mess things up. I knew that given his level of complete ignorance it wasn't even worth it to argue.
One thing I do notice is you have a bit of toe out in the front which will make the car more darty and you'll notice ruts in the road more. It will also accellerate the wear on the inside of your tires. 0.05-0.1 toe in would serve you better.
Rear toe-IN is also a bit more than ideal. I'd recommend the same settings as above.
Rear toe-IN is also a bit more than ideal. I'd recommend the same settings as above.
I went to the corpus SC. The alignment was done correctly, and the car drives better BUT the steering wheel is still loose because my right rear lower control arm is damaged. Unfortunately Corpus couldn't replace the part, since they're not a body shop but I could get that replaced in San Antonio or Pharr. I was actually wondering if I could replace it in Dallas, so I'll double check if that can be done over there.
So... does anyone know how much I can expect to spend on a replacement RH lower control arm and labor at an approved Tesla collision center? There are three shops three hours away from me (San Antonio, Pharr, Rio Grande City), and I do have Tesla insurance. I'm just not sure how much I will actually have to pay. I do have a $500 collision deductible and $500 comprehensive deductible.
I'm not not sure if this would even be covered under warranty, since the damage occurred due to roads...
Or, could the damaged control arm last me some 3k-5k miles more? If I keep driving like this, can a sudden fail in the RH lower control arm destroy other parts of my car, like the suspension? Is this something I need to fix asap?
I'm not not sure if this would even be covered under warranty, since the damage occurred due to roads...
Or, could the damaged control arm last me some 3k-5k miles more? If I keep driving like this, can a sudden fail in the RH lower control arm destroy other parts of my car, like the suspension? Is this something I need to fix asap?
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I didn't get the alignment specs from the SC, but they got the front right camber in spec. The invoice just says along the lines of, "slight damage / part might need replacement soon". I asked if it was ok to drive 3k miles and was told, "I don't see why not." They don't know if the control arm can cause issues later down the line.
I'll take pictures of the control arm this weekend, since I do not have access to my car at the moment. Dropped it off at a family friend's for now.
I'm surprised the SC cannot replace the control arm. That doesn't seam like it would need a body shop.
Gauss Guzzler
Safety Score = 42
If the shop didn't provide you with clear detailed pictures and a full explanation of the "slight damage" then they are simply trying to scam you. And control arms don't get "slight damage", they're either bent from a severe crash, or they're not.
If the car is pretty old and the rubber control arm bushings are badly decayed, it's possible that they may have become more decayed from your pothole, but the fancy car lingo jargon for a control arm bushing is "control arm bushing", not "control arm", so it appears that's not what they are referring to.
Take it back to a different Firestone or a different tech, show them this garbage printout that you paid for and ask them to align it properly. They can't do much for the front camber, but they can at least try. The rear camber is plenty adjustable, and they can do much better than the half-ass mismatch of 0.7/1.4 deg. They just didn't even try.
If the car is pretty old and the rubber control arm bushings are badly decayed, it's possible that they may have become more decayed from your pothole, but the fancy car lingo jargon for a control arm bushing is "control arm bushing", not "control arm", so it appears that's not what they are referring to.
Take it back to a different Firestone or a different tech, show them this garbage printout that you paid for and ask them to align it properly. They can't do much for the front camber, but they can at least try. The rear camber is plenty adjustable, and they can do much better than the half-ass mismatch of 0.7/1.4 deg. They just didn't even try.
This is a 4 month old 2023 RWD with 7k miles
The "slight damage" comment was from the Tesla service center
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