Hi. I'm a little pissed / worried and hope someone can help me get to the bottom of the problem with my TSX 09, which i bought certified pre-owned at an Acura dealer back in Feb '11. One of the things that sold me on this car was the tight steering, another was the Psi gauge on the info panel.
Last week i got 4 new goodyear assurance touring tires and had them do alignment. we're talking $800+. never bought all 4 at once, normally two at a time, so i was splurging. car had 65K+ miles, so i'm assuming they were the OEM tires. however, the steering has now completely changed and it's much looser than i like, more than any car i ever had, and i'm coming from an 01 Accord. i am probably worrying myself unnecessarily, but it's so loose i dont feel 100% safe driving it. it's just not the same now.
what has me pissed is when i got the car after the work, turned on the tire pressure guages, and they were all over the place. so automatically i begin to think this was either the worst car shop ever, or they are trying to trap me into more work than necessary. but i had to be somewhere and they were at closing time, so i drove off.
i'm assuming the alignment is done after the new tires are put on, so i'm thinking that alignment job is worthless considering the 10 psi differences in a set of front.rear tires. I also never noticed balances when i had the OEM tires on. could that be true?
Anyway, is what i am experiencing just a change from the OEM parts? I noticed some threads on here where people we complaining about the vague steering from the start with their TSX, but if that had been me, i would not have bought the car.
i'm wondering if it's worth my saturday to bring the car back to this place (which i noticed after the fact mutliple warning reviews left by angry customers), and have them re-align with the air now balanced by me, or take it to Acura to see if they did actual damage to my steering, or can fix for under $100. below are the numbers from the alignment:
Front Left:
Before: camber 0.2, caster 3.4, toe -0.81, SAI 8.3, angle 8.5
After: camber 0.2, caster 3.4, toe 0.04, SAI 8.4, angle 8.5
didn't include turning angle Diff - naively wish it would
Front Right
Before: camber -0.3, caster 3.7, toe 0.81, SAI 8.5, angle 8.2
After: camber -0.3, caster 3.7, toe 0.00, SAI 8.5, angle 8.2
Front:
Before: Xcamber 0.5, Xcaster -0.3, X SAI -0.2, total TOE 0.01
After: Xcamber 0.5, Xcaster -0.3, X SAI -0.2, total TOE 0.05
didn't include cross turn diff - same as above (this is where i believe problem would explain itself!!!)
Rear Left:
before: camber -1.8, toe: 0.22
after: camber -1.8, toe: 0.08
Rear Right:
before: camber -1.5, toe: 0.04
after: camber -1.5, toe: 0.03
Rear:
before: X camber -0.3, total toe 0.26, thrust angle 0.09
After: X camber -0.4, total toe 0.11, thrust angle 0.02
Any help would be greatly appreciated, if you are in the philly area, i will gladly provide a friendship worth of beer and burgers if you can diagnose the issue.
