Advice needed please - nct failure

Idioteque

Hi,

I posted here 2 weeks ago re my first NCT on an 03 Nissan Almera Saloon. I opted in the end to not get the full €269 Nissan service as I've only done 10K in the last 14 or so months and instead had a visual inspection on all parts by a garage. They also checked the head light allignment and did a wheel allignment. Everything was fine but they said the wheel allignment had been way off(something like minus 16mm). The report they gave me showed lots of areas in red(camber,caster from what I can recall) and after they re-alligned, everything was in green. I did very little driving after that, being consious not to throw the allignment out of whack - and so went for my NCT 2 days later. The mechanic after showed me the report and low and behold everything on the car was fine bar one thing which I failed on...the WHEEL ALLIGNMENT!
Needless to say I was pretty annoyed as I had to take time off work among other inconvienences, so I headed straight to the garage and showed the boss the reports etc. He appologised and said he couldn't understand why that happened and that maybe it was something to do with machine callibration. Anyway, we agreed that he'd pay for my re-test and that I would again have the wheels re-alligned a day or two before the re-test.
The wheels were realligned on Saturday just gone and the re-test was this morning. The car failed again for wheel allignment!! I had a good chat with the NCT mechanic and in fairness to him he was pretty sound. He brought me to the machine and showed exactly the problem and was sympatic to my problem given the reports I had from the garage on wheel alligment twice previously. Basically the problem seems to be that the metal pads that the wheels sit on are slipping to one side or another so it's definitly a mechanical problem and not a fault with their machine. The allignment is coming up as front axle 21m/km off which the mechanic says the the limit the machine can test to, so it may even be off by more.
My question(and thank you if you have stayed with me thus far!) is this...What should I do now?? Get the garage to collect my car and bring it for the next NCT? Use a different garage? Get the orginal garage to incur costs to have the car fully checked by another garage etc??

Also, it's probably worth noting that the company in question do Batteris, exhausts,wheel allignment,nct checks,alloys etc and are not maybe not a 'full' garage in the traditional sense. Also, I'm reluctant to name them as I have not contacted them yet about this mornings events, mainly beacuse I'm looking for advise on what to ask for.

If you need any further into please ask and I'll get back as soon as I can.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

Darragh29

Idioteque wrote:

Hi,

I posted here 2 weeks ago re my first NCT on an 03 Nissan Almera Saloon. I opted in the end to not get the full €269 Nissan service as I've only done 10K in the last 14 or so months and instead had a visual inspection on all parts by a garage. They also checked the head light allignment and did a wheel allignment. Everything was fine but they said the wheel allignment had been way off(something like minus 16mm). The report they gave me showed lots of areas in red(camber,caster from what I can recall) and after they re-alligned, everything was in green. I did very little driving after that, being consious not to throw the allignment out of whack - and so went for my NCT 2 days later. The mechanic after showed me the report and low and behold everything on the car was fine bar one thing which I failed on...the WHEEL ALLIGNMENT!
Needless to say I was pretty annoyed as I had to take time off work among other inconvienences, so I headed straight to the garage and showed the boss the reports etc. He appologised and said he couldn't understand why that happened and that maybe it was something to do with machine callibration. Anyway, we agreed that he'd pay for my re-test and that I would again have the wheels re-alligned a day or two before the re-test.
The wheels were realligned on Saturday just gone and the re-test was this morning. The car failed again for wheel allignment!! I had a good chat with the NCT mechanic and in fairness to him he was pretty sound. He brought me to the machine and showed exactly the problem and was sympatic to my problem given the reports I had from the garage on wheel alligment twice previously. Basically the problem seems to be that the metal pads that the wheels sit on are slipping to one side or another so it's definitly a mechanical problem and not a fault with their machine. The allignment is coming up as front axle 21m/km off which the mechanic says the the limit the machine can test to, so it may even be off by more.
My question(and thank you if you have stayed with me thus far!) is this...What should I do now?? Get the garage to collect my car and bring it for the next NCT? Use a different garage? Get the orginal garage to incur costs to have the car fully checked by another garage etc??

Also, it's probably worth noting that the company in question do Batteris, exhausts,wheel allignment,nct checks,alloys etc and are not maybe not a 'full' garage in the traditional sense. Also, I'm reluctant to name them as I have not contacted them yet about this mornings events, mainly beacuse I'm looking for advise on what to ask for.

If you need any further into please ask and I'll get back as soon as I can.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

Hi OP, this sounds like a simple "open & shut" case to me. What seems to have been happening is that your steering track rod arms/ends and or your lower suspension ball joints are worn and the outlet you brought your car to have been adjusting your wheel alignment without first checking to see if the components mentioned above, which are central to this adjustment procedure, are themselves worn.

The procedure for doing wheel alignment is roughly as follows:

(1) Check tyre pressures and condition, in particular ensuring tyre pressures are correct.

(2) Check suspension and steering components (track rod arms & ends, lower suspention ball jounts, wishbones, etc.), for wear, if there is evidence of wear, do not proceed to do wheel alignment!

(3) If all the above is in order, carry out wheel alignment.

What has happened in your case is that the person who did your wheel alignment skipped parts (1) and (2) above and jumped straight to part (3).

Basically your wheels were "aligned" when he aligned them in the garage but when he reversed the car 1 foot, the wheel alignment went all over the place again, most likely because you have a serious wear problem with your track rod ends or lower suspension ball joint(s).

If you have worn track rod arms/ends, or a component within your steering and/or suspension system is suffering from excessive wear, you cannot properly carry out wheel alignment. To someone who doesn't know what they are doing, the alignment system will make them think the wheels are aligned because it is in effect a "static" procedure. Once the car is moved an inch, the readings that were obtained for alignment and the subsequent adjustments made to the steering geometry, become absolutely meaningless as there is too much slack at the track rod ends or suspension ball joint(s) and the adjustment done is taken up by the slack in the track rod or suspension ball joint(2), caused by excess wear.

My advice is take your car to a mechanic and ask for your track rod arms/ends & suspension ball joints to be checked and also check for wishbone damage, etc and replace any items found to be worn, and wheel alignment to be done, but only after the steering components have been checked for wear.

If you get this done, you should have no more problems.

As for the issues you've had to date, I'd chalk them up to experience.

Fey!

Darragh; wouldn't the NCT guy have checked the track rod ends?

Darragh29

Fey! wrote:

Darragh; wouldn't the NCT guy have checked the track rod ends?

I'm taking from the OP saying that:

Idioteque wrote:

I had a good chat with the NCT mechanic and in fairness to him he was pretty sound. He brought me to the machine and showed exactly the problem and was sympatic to my problem given the reports I had from the garage on wheel alligment twice previously.

Basically the problem seems to be that the metal pads that the wheels sit on are slipping to one side or another so it's definitly a mechanical problem and not a fault with their machine...

That this is a slightly innaccurate description of what the NCT mechanic probably did say. The wheel doesn't sit on metal pads but sits on a ball joint assembly, but apart from the confused terminology, the statement broadly indicates that the problem as described by the NCT mechanic is that the component that supports the wheel to the suspension is worn.

The confusion around the issue might be compounded by the fact that where the NCTS detect suspension and/or steering ball joint excessive wear, not only do they force these parts to be replaced in order for a successful retest, but the NCTS also make it mandatory for the wheel alignment test to be done again, so that they can be sure that not only are the worn parts replaced, but also that they can be sure that the adjustment is correct.

The fact that the OP originally failed castor, camber and wheel alignment, but that from my reading of the OP's original problem, the castor and camber problems are now resolved and the only outstanding issue is wheel alignment, tells me that the problem is not lower suspension ball joint but rather steering track rod end wear.

However the NCT mechanic appears to be saying that the problem is suspension ball joint wear. The easiest thing to do is get the car into a proper garage and get a mechanic to check the steering track rod ends and also lower suspension ball joints for wear. What is certain is that this car either has advanced track rod end wear or else advanced suspension ball joint wear, or possibly a combination of both. This is a 10 minute exercise and will clear up all the confusion.

Wossack

geez, you gotta wonder if it would have passed first time round without the 16mm change originally made...

Darragh29

Wossack wrote:

geez, you gotta wonder if it would have passed first time round without the 16mm change originally made...

This car was never going to pass the NCT. With the degree of wear to hand here, the outcome was failure. Even if the data was within limits, the NCTS carry out a manual check for wear on these components and the fact that they were worn would have failed the car. As I said previously, the NCTS decision can be slightly misleading because even though they fail the car for "WHEEL ALIGNMENT", the problem can be component wear, but I've seen them describing the problem as "Ball Joint Excess Wear", but not only will they inspect the new components for the re-test, they also make you redo the wheel alignment (side-slip) test to make sure that if you have had components replaced, that they are adjusted correctly.

BrianD3

Just to confirm what Darragh29 is saying - in 2005 one of our cars was doing the NCT, I had the white sheet from the 2003 NCT and the alignment was a bit off at that time so I decided to get the wheels aligned before the 2005 test.

But when the car did the 2005 test it failed on an excessively worn ball joint, (this was clearly stated on the white sheet) It passed the alignment test easily but this also needed to be redone in the retest. The NCT guy seemed to suggest that the place that did the alignment beforehand should have informed me that the ball joint was worn and that it was a waste of time doing the alignment with a worn ball joint

So anyway I replaced the ball joint and got a 2nd alignment done and it passed the retest easily. BTW the alignment was very obvioulsy askew after replacing the ball joint.

MercMad

Its a basic procedure for anyone checking alignment or replacing any parts that they test for wear first !

I would be concerned that they state the camber/castor is incorrect, as I do not believe these are adjustable on that car. This would indicate something is damaged or seriously worn.

I could be wrong on that but someone more familiar with the model should take a look at it rather than the "Fast Fit" type people !

Darragh29

MercMad wrote:

Its a basic procedure for anyone checking alignment or replacing any parts that they test for wear first !

I would be concerned that they state the camber/castor is incorrect, as I do not believe these are adjustable on that car. This would indicate something is damaged or seriously worn.

I could be wrong on that but someone more familiar with the model should take a look at it rather than the "Fast Fit" type people !

Yeah, its hard to see exactly what is going on here with camber and castor failing, then passing, when there is still an outstanding problem with a worn steering component that has not been replaced yet. This doesn't make sense.

I'd go back to the drawing board with this car and book it into a proper garage for a start who can get a qualified mechanic to do the usual checks that are done before wheel alignment. This is the problem with the fast fit outlets, most employees working on your car are not actually mechanics.

Fey!

Darragh - thanks for the clarification.

Idioteque

Thanks all for the advice. What Darragh is saying seems to make sense as I noticed that once I got the car back from the garage after the wheel allignment, the steering seemed stiffer, but after 10mins or so it became 'loose' again.
Oh and to clarify, the metal pads I was speaking of are the ones in the ground by the wheel allginment machine in the NCT centre. The front, then back wheels rest on the pads and if the pads slip to the side you fail. I'm guessing this is the 'side-slip' test. Everything else in the car passed the test the first time around and the NCT mechanic didn't mention worn parts etc

So I reckon I'll just bring it to a proper mechanic and have the problem looked at.

Thanks again for the advice!