erl

Long story short (I hope).
I bought my RX-8 from a dealer in another town about 1.5 hours away (I got a better deal than the dealer in town).
Well, I noticed that it pulled a bit to the right on my drive home. I set up an appointment with the service department in town to get an alignment done and also get the rotors painted since they were a bit rusty.
After I got those done, it seemed like the car was pulling even more to the right.

I made another appointment to get the alignment checked and they called me back a few hours later to tell me that they don't have the correct card for their computerized alignment machine. They expect it in later in the day. Now, this makes me think..."If they don't have the correct card, how did they do the original alignment?"

When I confront the dealer and service tech about this the service guy tells me, "Well, since we didn't have the RX-8 card to use on the machine, I did a late model RX-7 alignment."
Now, I'm no car genius, but does this not sound like an incredibly stupid thing to do? Am I wrong to think that this service department is incredibly inept?
Now I'm stuck with an incorrect alignment until I can find the time during the week (again) to take it to a service department that knows what they're doing.
I'm almost tempted to take it to a non-Mazda place and just bill the service dept.

For you car geniuses out there: I'm not ruining something with this RX-7 alignment, am I? I'm planning on a trip this weekend that will put several hundred miles on my car. Mind you, the alignment as it is now isn't horrible, it's just pretty annoying having it pull a bit to the right all the time, especially in a car with tight steering.

Thanks.

RXE16T

What sort of Mazda dealership does not have the alignment specs?
They're in the workshop manual for f***'s sake.

You should be alright on the RX7 specs since I believe they are very similar, but do get it corrected asap.

RX-GR8

when to get my 15,000 mile service today. the service guy says the service is basically an oil change. that will be $31.99 for the oil change. you can pay when you pick the car up. i say ok and get in my loaner then i say wait a minute. it's 15,000 miles or 12 months whichever comes first. i only had 11,800 miles on my 8 but i bought it 9-18-2003 so thats well over 12 months ago. my last eervice was in july 2004 for the 10,000 mile service. so i went back to talk to the service guy today and explain it should be a free oil change. he say's you're right. when i pick the car up the invoice says 6 quarts of oil! this is the second time they overfilled it. it also says that bulk oil was used. they used to put a part number for the oil. not sure if they even used 5w-20. i also mentioned my brakes squealed. he said mazda hasnt decided what to do about that yet. whether the pads should be replaced, etc. BS

slllygrl10

I got had a wheel alignment done last week after I got my Tein Springs 4-5 weeks ago. I decided to go to NTB rather than at the local mazda because they were actually cheaper. I paid $70 for unlimited wheel alignment for 6 months or 6,000 miles which ever comes first rather than $75 for one wheel alignment. Got me worried cuz they said that they might not have the specs to align my car. O oh The guy that was working on my car called mazda and had the specs faxed. Whew...... But anyways I'm going to get my headlight aimed correctly tomorrow I wonder if they're going to charge me?!

truemagellen

how do they align your headlights?

RXE16T

Most headlights have alignment "bolts", like they have alignment bolts on suspension.

By tightening or loosening these bolts, you can raise or lower the direction of the headlight beams.

Models with Xenons have an automatic levelling feature built it whereas all other types have to be manually adjusted.