Ride Height report... (long)
Thursday, April 29, 1999 9:23 AM
Last week I took my truck to the dealer. I expressed a concern about
lost ride height in the front and a sharp pull to the right in the
alignment. I did not BS the man about rubbing tires or anything
else, I just used well documented measurements to prove what I
thought was an excessive loss of ride height and that the poor
alignment might be a residual side effect.
I waited until I had a sufficient amount of miles on the truck
(9000) before I took it in so that I and the service writer would be
satisfied that the truck had a chance to "settle" in. He agreed that
this was the right thing to do and I left the truck with them. (BTW,
I also conveniently waited until I tacked about 60/70 lbs. of grill
guard on the front end but he didn't seem to care about that :).
I picked it up later that day and here are the results. The factory
specs for Z height (that's the tech. term for the measurement used
on the torsion bar height) are between 117mm and 122mm. Mine
measured in at 115mm. So they moved the adj. to the upper end
(122mm) and set it there. Most all of my alignment specs were out,
caster, camber, toe in, etc. So they set those back in line with
factory specs and that was that.
Well, I've put about 500 miles on it since and my impression is that
the work was a resounding success. The steering wheel is centered
(was off to left before), the truck tracks either straight or
follows the angle of the road which it should. And the front end
(ride height) looks closer to what it did when new. And since the
parts have settled in I should not experience the same level of ride
height loss as I did when the truck was new.
And all of this, including the alignment, was free. My service
writer said that Chevrolet will spring for one alignment as long as
the truck is less than a year old OR has less than 10,000 miles on
it. After that it's on the owner. Best of all, I think this has
started what could be a good relationship with the dealer service
man which can only be good.
Gary -- '98 ZR2 Ext. Cab
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