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2000 tahoe steering is messed up

bigbadchev84

bigbadchev84

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Hermiston, Oregon
The wife has a 2000 tahoe, new body style with a 6" lift and 285-75-16 bfg m/ts on it. I just replaced a bad pitman and idler arm, and an outer tie rod end.

When I was all done I took it in and had it aligned. They told me it was 1 degree out and re-centered the steering wheel for me. The wife has been driving t for about a week now, I had been really busy with work and she was saying that it was steering funny. I took it for a test drive last night and sure enough it is.

When trying to turn tight, its almost like its in 4wd, but its not, It is really grabby and scuffs the tires pulling into the driveway especially. Is there something i should look at before I take it back in?
 
Sounds like you should be looking for a much better alignment shop. :deal:
 
I went to les schwabs, they have always been decent to us. It literally took them 20 mins from the time we dropped it off to the time they called us to pick it up. It was just the 54.95 front end alignment.

One thing I forgot to mention and not sure if it matters, My 3 1/2 year old mechanics assistant was inside the tahoe when i had the steering column shaft pulled to drop the steering box. He had moved the steering wheel from where it was when i disconnected it. I "think" the column hat the u cut in it for the bolt to slide through and lock/clamp it in place, so i couldnt index the steering wheel in a different part of the column. Not sure if that has any relevance or not.
 
When your steering wheel is straight does it turn one direction more turns then it does in the other direction?
 
did thay give you a before AND after print out of the alignment. ?

i always do this for the cust. shows how bad it was and now good a job i did on getting it to spec.

now i do find that lots of problems vehicles i get from other places dont give a print out. so how can thay say we did a full alignment with no prof.

lots of times i get ( oh i have had 2-3 in the few years i have owned it ) then i show them b.s. as it still has the factory alignment plugs still in the vehhicle. these must be pulled to get a full alignment done.

and before you say you dont to do that for every alignment i call b.s. 9 out of 10 times i get one on the rack there is work to be done. caster / camber needs to be trimed up a bit to get back to full exact spec.

so i bet thay just set the toe and centered the wheel and shipped it. as i know lots of shops want gravey money. thay hate :mad: lift kit or drop kit stuff. thay set the toe and let it go.

so with this info what did you get for 54.95 ? :confused:


and if the kid turned the wheel to far he would have broke the clock spring for air bag / horn use. so if no air bag light and horn works then you are fine.
 
Yeah thats a no on the airbag and the horn does work. I have an even 1-1/2 turns from center on the steering wheel both ways.

I was driving it today and noticed that it sounds like the tires are making a grinding noise (rubber against asphalt) like when sitting still turning the tires.

Steering going down the road feels sloppy, almost too sensitive. Also the thing used to turn fairly tight, It has the turning radius of a sherman tank now.

I did not get a print out on the alignment at all. Im gonna be really pissed off if they did rip me off, since my nieghbor on the corner of our culdesac was the one who did the alignment. Where do I find these factory plugs at? I probably have no less than 5-6 alignment reciepts from the previous owner from les schwab.
 
bigbadchev84 said:
I went to les schwabs, they have always been decent to us. It literally took them 20 mins from the time we dropped it off to the time they called us to pick it up. It was just the 54.95 front end alignment.

One thing I forgot to mention and not sure if it matters, My 3 1/2 year old mechanics assistant was inside the tahoe when i had the steering column shaft pulled to drop the steering box. He had moved the steering wheel from where it was when i disconnected it. I "think" the column hat the u cut in it for the bolt to slide through and lock/clamp it in place, so i couldnt index the steering wheel in a different part of the column. Not sure if that has any relevance or not.
Click to expand...

You can hardly set toe in 20 minutes from start to finish let alone do a complete 4 wheel alignment. :deal:

My bet is that all they did was set toe adjustment (and not very good at that) and called it "good".
 
For what it's worth I bought a 3 year unlimited times alignment from my local America's Tire/Discount Tire chain down the street from my house.
If you have one of those around ya' I'd go talk to them. For $140 I thought it was a good bang for the buck, especially for a big or lifted vehicle. Plus they do a good job. Even my big old k3500 tracks pretty dang straight and feels good going down the road.
Obviously it depends on the guys they have working but it's worth a shot.
 
Almost sounds like your caster is pretty high but I doubt they adjusted that in 20 minutes. I could see how they got toe adjusted in 20 minutes but not a full alignment. Did you feel across your tires to see if there is toe wear? Of course you might already have toe wear driving to the tire store at a degree out.
 
Sounds like excessive toe in, from the description. Between a quick test drive, getting it on the rack, setting up all the heads and then taking initial readings, that's about 20 minutes right there. With no adjustments made. Not sure if I'd go back just to have the same hack do it again.

On the other hand, and I've seen it before, did the kid happen to hit the 4x4 buttons? Make sure it's not in 4x4 before pointing fingers.
 
on 99-up new body style 4x4 gm if you have all factory upper control arm parts with NO drop bracket stuff for lift then here ya go.

the 2 bolts that hold the upper control arm to the frame brackets are what does the caster / camber adjustments. its a slotted hole and you loosen the nut and turn the bolt . IF its never had a full alignment done from the factory settings there will be a blue/gray/white plug on the front side of the front bolt and on the back side of the back bolt.

these will look like a little half moon shape. all you got to do to remove these is pop them out with a screw driver. this is my way of telling if there has been a full alignemt ever done. or fresh wrench marks on the nuts and bolts.

boy do i love this style over he old 88-98 body style with knock outs and up on top of the frame adjusters. man did thay suck.

hope this helps. :D
 
Well I was just out talking to one of my nieghbors about how crappy this thing is after alignment, We got to looking and the passenger side tire looks like it is turned to the right slightly. the drivers was straight. Took out a tape measure and just did a quick measure and the front was 61-1/8 the back of the tire was 60-7/8" So its over a 1/4" out. Then I seen the nieghbor that works in the alignment shop outside mowing his lawn, I went over and had him come over to take a look.

He said yeah i think they just did a toe adjustment and centered your wheel. I asked wtf? I paid for a alignment. The other nieghbor was there and asked him how much he was gonna charge me to fix it right. He said to bring it in tomorrow and they will make good on what I paid for. Im really pissed about all this right now.

He asked me what all I did to it again. I replaced an outer tie rod, the idler the pitman arm, and the 2 drop brackets for the torsion bar crossmember. He said he remembered looking at it and thinking the pitman and idler arm looked stock and he thought it should have a dropped pitman and idler. I dont have the old ones anymore, but I dont remember seeing a difference in them? I thought the kits came with new spindles to keep all the factory stuff? Can anyone verify?
 
ifs lift kit parts are a drop center link kit or raised knuckles for the correction.

ifs dosnt use drop pitman or ideler arm on gm ifs i have seen yet.

and make sure thay check and set the ride hight. since you had the tbars moved around.


and get a before and after print out. ! ! ! !
 
Just went and had some brand new 285/75/16 toyo m/ts put on it today and had them do the alignment on it, they said everything was fine. I got the print out, maybe someone else can wiegh in here. Im gonna go for another test drive.
I never disassembled the torsion bars, I have a mechanic buddy that told me I could just unbolt the spacer and put the new one in. It was super easy and took about 15min to do both sides.
tahoealignment.jpg
 
i would like the camber to be as close to same both sides. as possible.

and cross caster is .5-.8 higher on right as it should be. always higher to the right .

and dam your rear end is basicly square. i dont see that much around here.

thrust angle real good. want as close to zero as possible.

looks good to me.

i also print it diffrently tho. the way i can print it its bar graphs and 100x better to under stand than just #'s on the sheet like you got.

i will do a print and post it like i do. i live it that way. it sells the job 10x better also.
 
sweetk30 said:
i will do a print and post it like i do. i live it that way. it sells the job 10x better also.
Click to expand...

I always like to show a customer with a bar graph also. When ever I hand them one with just numbers they look at it like it is written in Chinese lol. Or I get a call asking for the guy that aligned their car asking why it is out of spec. Then I have to tell them to look at the correct column...:doah:

Soon as I show them a graph they understand 100x better.
 
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