Quote:
Originally Posted by brantgraves
yeah, my tires are pretty old, i bought the car from a guy who let it sit for 5 years.. but the tires have alot of life left, so i didnt think anything about it till i noticed all these problems. $41 is the cheapest alignment in town here, but would i need a alignment even though it drives perfectly straight? and my car does have 170k on it, so im sure the struts are bad anyway...
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Check your struts by walking to one corner of the car, push down on the bumper and bounce the car a few times. Let go really quickly while the car is moving up and down. If the car continues to bounce anymore than one more time, the struts are bad, if it seems to immediatly return to the upright position with maybe a tiny amount of bounciness, they are probably good. Go to each corner and do this. If you notice one corner is bad, then you have found that the shock nearest you is bad. My car just ticked off 150K and its shocks are still good, great in fact, I was very surprised.
I VERY recently bought an MR2 that ironically also sat for five years. It had new tires put on it.... Five years ago, they still had about 95% tread left, they looked fine other than some slight dry rot. After driving the car on the road they were all out of balance, however even having them balanced didnt help. So I had to buy all new tires, but it wasnt a loss at all, I spent the extra money and got performance tires. Best investment you can make on an MR2.
If the car drives straight, and you can inspect all the suspension components yourself, you dont really need an alignment. Sometimes shops get cars that are perfectly straight when they are put on the alignment rack. In that case, they check all the suspension pieces and make sure everything is in good condition... And they still charge for the alignment...