Sears Vs. my TABs

["Walter Coe" <Whalt@xxxx>]

I just had my car aligned for the second time at Sears. I figured that it
would be hard for them to do wrong because they have the latest Hunter
4-wheel alignment machine that has the specs for the DeLorean preprogrammed.
They did the same car last year. I told them then to just adjust the toe-in
on the front and tell me how much the rear is off so that I could fix it at
home. I said the same thing this time, but the mechanic got curious and
wanted me to get my money's worth. So he loosened both TABs and played with
the shims. The OEM shims did not give the fine adjustment that he wanted,
so he made a thinner shim to get it perfect. I know that there are
potential problems with using the wrong kind of shims made of soft metal can
compress too easily. So I made sure that his custom shim was not placed on
the end and instead was sandwiched between the others where it couldn't
crush. His custom shim did make the rear alignment perfect.

HE DID NOT USE A TORQUE WRENCH WHEN TIGHTENING THE TABS.

I told him about the required torque specs, but he wasn't interested. I
asked him if he had a torque wrench built into his arm, and he said "Yes" --
that he just remembered how tight it felt when he loosened it and put it
back to the same tightness.

Well, from there I drove straight home very carefully. I checked how much
torque it took to further tighten the TABs, and found that both needed less
than 20 ft-lbs of torque to move. For those of you not up on the specs,
these are PJ Grady TABs that are supposed to be torqued to 60 ft-lbs. This
guy had them less than 1/3 that requirement.

The moral of the story:
DON'T TRUST JUST ANYONE TO WORK ON YOUR CAR -- PARTICULARLY SAFETY RELATED
ISSUES THAT COULD WRECK THE CAR AND KILL YOU!

Also, the mechanic didn't hold the tie-rod ends while loosening the
jam-nuts. But at least he didn't mind my watching him. It's interesting to
see how that alignment computer works.

(I'm off of my soap box now.)

Walt