OK ever Since I had my Koni FSD shocks and lowering springs on my car the steering wheel is well off centre, I took it to my mate at kwikie fit and he said they cant align lowerd cars and said I need a specialist but didn't know of one.

firstly is this true? and secondly do we know of any in the west London/Kent area?

cheers in advance

OK ever Since I had my Koni FSD shocks and lowering springs on my car the steering wheel is well off centre, I took it to my mate at kwikie fit and he said they cant align lowerd cars and said I need a specialist but didn't know of one.

firstly is this true? and secondly do we know of any in the west London/Kent area?

cheers in advance

Elite tyres at Rainham have done mine several times, and mine is lowered on KW3's.

All they have to do is lock the position of the steering wheel in the straight ahead postion with a device they have that locks onto the steering wheel and drivers seat, and then adjust the alignment.

A well known techie on here also did it the same way many years ago with no problem.

Wheels in Motion in Chesham have an excellent reputation on the MX5 owners club site. Full 4 wheel laser alignment. If you google it theres a good website.

How much have you lowered it by? I have fsd's but want to drop it abit, i think 30mm is max with the fsd's. Im looking into getting H&R springs 20mm drop.

Any decent garage with 4wheel laser alignment should be able to sort it out.

Update on this ... I've got exactly the same problem.

I had a Koni kit fitted yesterday with new wishbones bushes so obviously it all needed tracking/aligning after. I picked the car up and straight away I noticed the steering wheel was set down on the left side, so off-centre. Took it back this morning after the bloke said it shouldn't take long to do but I've just phoned him and he says they've been on it 3 hours already and he sounds like he's lost the will to live. He said if he had his 4-wheel tracker on the ramp it would be easy but why the f**k hasn't he got it on the ramp if he's doing the tracking on my car?

I'm nervous he's totally ruining it, how is he tracking/aligning it if he hasn't got it on his 4-wheel tracker? I'll wait and see later today

OK ever Since I had my Koni FSD shocks and lowering springs on my car the steering wheel is well off centre, I took it to my mate at kwikie fit and he said they cant align lowerd cars and said I need a specialist but didn't know of one.

firstly is this true? and secondly do we know of any in the west London/Kent area?

cheers in advance

All a basic tracking check will set up is the toe angle, which might change the straight ahead or might not, depending on where its out, but Kwikie Mart fitters won't have the training or knowledge to set up a lowered car which won't appear in their book of settings.

Unless your car was squiffy ride beforehand, I'm at a loss as to how you managed to change the straight ahead position though.

Some 4-wheel alignment kits do not allow enough clearance for light/laser to go under skid plate, these are the ones who refuse to do the lowered cars. I used 2 places where I live, one could do it, the other could not.

What most likely happened during your lowering is that the control arms are now in different position to the ball joint than they used to be, and they're not symmetricall placed respective to each balljoint.

Look at 3 bolts below the wheel hub on each side, the ones with 3 connected nuts. The holes are slotted, so that you can move the balljoints around.

Quite often, to get the car where it was it is sufficient to loosen the bolts and put both balljoints outwards as far as possible (greater camber), or inwards (smaller camber). After that, the toe correction is minimal.

Keep in mind these are stretch bolts, so you really should replace them after undoing, if you just put in new ones, you probably are OK with tightening them once more.

Also, even if afterwards the car drives straight with the correct steering wheel position, do carry out wheel alignemtn as the toe in can be very different (as in 20mm different), and that will eat your tyres and/or lead to instability at speed.

Cheers guys, much appreciated. The garage seem to have sorted it, eventually, or at least the steering wheel's straight and it seems to handle steering OK with little vibration. I think I'll get a full 4-wheel alignment and print out anyway just to be sure.

He did warn me about extra tyre wear by lowering but if you get it aligned properly (and I've also had SuperPro bushes fitted to tighten it all up) shouldn't this be a minimal difference? :confused:

Cheers guys, much appreciated. The garage seem to have sorted it, eventually, or at least the steering wheel's straight and it seems to handle steering OK with little vibration. I think I'll get a full 4-wheel alignment and print out anyway just to be sure.

He did warn me about extra tyre wear by lowering but if you get it aligned properly (and I've also had SuperPro bushes fitted to tighten it all up) shouldn't this be a minimal difference? :confused:

He has a point. You will have increased the rear (non adjustable IIRC) camber, and front castor settings, which probably will increase inside edge wear.