RJinVA

I have been working on my own vehicles for almost 30 years and I absolutely cringe when I have to let someone else touch my vehicle for alignments, which is the only thing I ever bring my vehicle to a shop for. When I get new tires I always throw on my spare set and drop off the loose set for tire replacement and even then I cringe at the things I experience, most people just don't care. I installed a mild lift kit (1.5" front) and since I don't drive much I waited about a week before getting the alignment to let the springs settle. It actually drove great, pretty much identical to before I installed the lift kit (Eibach Pro Truck Kit Stage 2 with OME upper control arms). I bring it to the local Toyota dealer today for an alignment and 2 hours later I get the GX back. First thing, the driver's front camber is out of spec. They say they can't correct it which I feel is BS since the specs were perfect during the last alignment and I also installed OME upper control arms,. After realizing that ,I get sidetracked because the service writer tells me that the tech found a DTC for the yaw sensor. One, I immediately think this is BS, I just changed my oil this past weekend and every time I change the oil I hook up my AUTEL scanner and look for codes on every system, there were none current or historical. I get home and throw the scanner on again, same, no codes, no historical codes. Why would a tech even bother hooking up an OBDII scanner to my vehicle for an alignment? Is that somehow necessary for a GX? (Premium, no air suspension) The service writer said something about charging me a diagnostic fee for that but then said he wouldn't charge me when I questioned it. I'm thinking this lazy technician barely did anything for the alignment and didn't want to be bothered with properly adjusting the lower control arm adjustments because it was quitting time and then on top of it wanted to charge me a diagnostic fee for some bogus DTC that never existed. To top it all off, the tech didn't even make sure the steering wheel was straight so now I have to bring it elsewhere to see if they can correct the camber and straighten the wheel. Any thoughts on hooking up an OBD scanner for an alignment?

mike202

Here is what is says in the service manual. The procedure is attached and it does require getting in the chassis section of the control unit with a scanner/intelligent tester. With that said, I doubt any independent shop would do this but it looks like Lexus is following the book.

NOTICE: If the wheel alignment has been adjusted, and if suspension or underbody components have been removed/installed or replaced, be sure to perform the following initialization procedure in order for the system to function normally:

Perform zero point calibration of the yaw rate and acceleration sensor and the test mode inspection