Dealer didn’t align car to specs – what should I do?

[jime]

The dealer did not align my 2015 Genesis to specifications and when I asked (multiple phone calls), was told that they were checking with Hyundai to see if the caster could be adjusted??

Should I:
1. Forget about it – it is not that far out and maybe the caster being aligned is not that important.
2. Ask for my money back and take the car somewhere else to be aligned – but who can I trust if the dealer can’t do it?
3. Complain about it to Hyundai – but who and how?

Background:
Since having the rear tires wear out after 7K miles on a new 95 Acura Legend coupe due to misalignment, I have always watched the tire wear and had the new car aligned soon after purchasing it. I was going to pay to have my Genesis aligned at 7.5K but was told that the alignment was included as part of the tire recall. Then when I picked the car up after the tires were changed I was told that alignment was not part of the recall. So I paid to have the car aligned at the 15K check. When I picked the car up there was no alignment data. When I asked I was told that they were having “printer problems”, and then was given an unreadable black and white copy. A further request resulted in the data being emailed to me.
I will try to attach to attach the data but if I am not successful:
Outages before: toe-in both sides, front and back; caster left rear
Outages after: caster (range -1.00 to -2.00) left rear -2.41 degrees, right rear -2.10 degrees

 

[Mark_888]

Personally, I would be more concerned about whether the car drives straight, and that the tires wear evenly, rather than whether the alignment is to specs.

 

[Nikgen]

Out-of-spec is out-of-spec: Lots of red on that printout, so I'd demand they fix it or refund your money. If you don't get proper remediation with the dealer, contact the Equus and Genesis Customer Care Center at (877) 378-8727 and open a case to get this resolved. Good Luck

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Agreed with above. There are specs for a reason. So the car should be within specs to operate properly. If they can't get it within specs, then something else is amiss, bent or wore out suspension parts.

Mark, if the car is aligned to within specs, then it will drive true and have even tire wear.

 

[Mark_888]

Agreed with above. There are specs for a reason. So the car should be within specs to operate properly. If they can't get it within specs, then something else is amiss, bent or wore out suspension parts.

Mark, if the car is aligned to within specs, then it will drive true and have even tire wear.

There is a big difference between the 2009-2011 suspension, the 2012-2014, and the 2015+.

HMA did not use the stock KDM suspension on the 2009-2011 and played around with the alignment to make the car handling more "responsive"
and more like the Infiniti M or BMW driving experienced for the USA market. When they did that, it also meant that the car would usually not drive straight and tires would wear unevenly and wear quickly.

When my original OEM tires wore out (rather quickly) on my 2009, I got new tires and immediately went to an independent suspension shop for an alignment. Frist they aligned to specs and then test drove the car, and made minor adjustments to make the car drive straight. They repeated this 3 times until they got it right. The guy at the suspension shop was an expert in doing alignments, since that was pretty much all he did (unlike a Hyundai dealer tech).

Since then (I am still on the same set of tires) my car has driven straight and tires have worn evenly and slowly. That is why I say that factory alignment specs are not the be-all and end-all of proper alignment.

I am quite sure that newer Genesis models don't have that problem of the original 2009-2011 suspension, so factory specs should work, but I am still not a complete believer of factory specs over real world driving when it comes to alignment. But an alignment should never be done except right after brand new tires are put on, or the results will not be good.

 

[losboricua]

If you mess around with all the adjustments long enough you can get the caster tweaked way better. If you can't then something might be bent. I have a lower Genesis and my buddy and I spent about an hour tweaking with every setting until we got 90% of the setting to exact specs. The only thing we could not get to spec was the front camber because it is not adjustable. Even though we where not able to adjust the camber, we played enough with the other settings that we where able to get it very close.

 

[amartz]

HMA did not use the stock KDM suspension on the 2009-2011 and played around with the alignment to make the car handling more "responsive" and more like the Infiniti M or BMW driving experienced for the USA market. When they did that, it also meant that the car would usually not drive straight and tires would wear unevenly and wear quickly.

When my original OEM tires wore out (rather quickly) on my 2009, I got new tires and immediately went to an independent suspension shop for an alignment. Frist they aligned to specs and then test drove the car, and made minor adjustments to make the car drive straight. They repeated this 3 times until they got it right. The guy at the suspension shop was an expert in doing alignments, since that was pretty much all he did (unlike a Hyundai dealer tech).

I'm with Mark on this one. I bought new a 1990 5.0 Mustang hatchback. It went thru the OEM tires *real* quick. After I bought a new set, I went to an alignment shop I trusted. He pulled up the specs for the 90, and then the specs for the 89, which was essentially the same car. Ford had, to the best of my memory, greatly increased the camber, supposedly to improve handling vs. the competition. He set the camber back to the 89 specs, and my tire life was *greatly* improved!

 

[jime]

Long story with communicating with Hyundai Customer Service and my local dealership, but I am now convinced that the 2015 Genesis does not have an alignment specification for the rear caster.

The attached was provided to me as proof that the 2012 Genesis Sedan, along with the Accent, Elantra, Sonata and Azera do not have a rear caster alignment specification. I can only assume that the newer (2015) models are the same.

 

[TEF]

Listen to amartz and use an well-respected independent alignment shop. Going back and forth with a dealer is pointless. Unlike fixing something that is broken where it either works or doesn't. This is an analog process involving some skill and, what's more the customer, never knows if it was really done correctly. He'll tie up the car for a day and tell you it's been corrected - you'll verify this only after a few thousand miles when tire wear out or they don't. Good alignment shops use equipment that can be programmed for each car and the machine will know what's adjustable and what's fixed. In my area, it costs about $80.00 for a four-wheel alignment and $50 for a two-wheel one. However, with today's cars all having IRS, it's seems foolish to do only the fronts. Hope you can resolve this as tires for as those 18" tires are expensive.