The Struggle
So these last two weeks have been kind of annoying and a definite struggle for the M3. While I was beyond happy with how the Rega project turned out, it was immediately followed by some really shit luck. After getting the wheels on, I decided it was time for a realignment. I wanted to adjust my previous alignment mistakes, and get this sitting exactly how I wanted. Now admittedly, the car is low but looking at clearances I had hoped my new alignment would give me the breathing room I wanted. So I booked an appointment and took the car in.
This is where things went very wrong. For those of you who don’t live in Phoenix, AZ: we have exactly three places you can take a low car for an alignment. Only one of those is remotely close to me (and still 30 minutes away). I had previously taken the M3 there when it was on the Fifteen52s, and while I wasn’t blown away by their service, they got the job done. What more could you ask for?
I dropped the car off first thing in the morning, and by mid-afternoon I got a phone call.
“Pick your shit up, we aren’t working on this”
Not how I wanted my afternoon to go. The owner of the shop started yelling at me over the phone to get my car out of his shop. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the call, and finally got him to calm down enough to explain why. His tech was inexperienced in driving lowered cars, and there is a very substantial curb you have to go over to enter the alignment bay. The tech turns the wheel full lock, and (at speed) goes over the bump. This unrolled and ruined my fender.
So now I’m in a weird position. The owner of the shop is heated at me because I brought a low car to his speciality low-car and exotics alignment shop.
I had to talk him down from a cliff, and get him to align the car anyways. It took them over 24 hours (he had to keep the car over night), and the next morning I went to get it and the alignment visually looked off. They did nothing to address the fender, and while the owner apologized for the damage he also lectured me on how tight my clearances were on the car and how much he hates dealing with low cars.
Again, his shop is advertised (and his social media presence shows) they only deal with enthusiast cars, track cars, exotics and so on.
I get home, threw the fifteen52s back on until I could sort this mess and went for a drive that evening.
Something was definitely off with the alignment, and I was still none to happy about the fender. So I gave my friend a call who just happened to get some alignment plates in for doing things himself. He agreed to help me fix the fender and realign the front of the car.
What we discovered is the shop basically only added camber to the front passenger wheel, and adjusted the rear toe. They did absolutely nothing else. The driver’s side wheel was at -2.0, the passenger -3.8. It had overall toe out. So I raised the car a hair, and we redid the front alignment. This was our first time aligning a car, but actually we ultimately got the front toe near zero, and the camber is now reading -3.8 per side up front. As for the fender, it still looks bad with the cracked paint, but at least it’s flat now. We used a hammer and dolly to take out some of the flair and damage underneath.
My custom 8mm spacers arrived as well. As it turns out there are no 5x114.3 spacers with a BMW hub bore on the market. So I ordered a set of 8mm and 10mm for the car. I only need the 8mm for now, though I may change it to 10mm later if I’m feeling extra dangerous.
I was also able to obtain a Scmiedmann LTW wing from a friend of mine. He bought it and shipped it in from Germany, but just sold his M3. He already got all the body work and primer done, so it just needs a color match at this point. I had about given up on finding a good LTW wing, so I’m very pleased with this buy. I’m now on the fence if I should color match and put it on now, or wait until the car gets repainted later. I’m impatient but you know... it looks so cool.
So there’s the update for now. I can live with fender damage and the embarrassment of driving around the car like that when it’s my fault, but in this case it was just a shady shop and idiot kid that ruined my day. Fortunately eventually it’ll be permanently resolved when the car gets painted, but in the meantime I’m still pretty bummed.
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