Hi! We have received so much help from this group. We replaced our 17 yr old tires. Our Jeep is new to us, and we have posted previously repairs made, including an alignment (before tires were replaced). We switched from 30 9.5 15 tires to 235 75 15 tires. We bought the Wrangler trailrunners. Long story short tire shop is different than the place that did the alignment, which was less than 250 miles ago. This new tire shop didn’t do the “free alignment check” when putting the new tires on because it said it needed a new Pittman arm and drag link since they were old and they wouldn’t do it. So, long story short, I would have thought the original shop that did the alignment would have replaced the parts if needed. The original shop had said Jeep is in good shape, just has old parts. Drives better with new tires. Any advice. We are leaning to just letting it be as car was just aligned and drives better.

Also, note if anyone wants the old tires and around Indianapolis please DM. Would not use on road, but maybe like our previous owner who used on his property to go up and down a hill. Picture of old tire and our Jeep. We love it!

 

Pitman arms very rarely wear it, it's a solid block of steel, and the drag link doesn't affect alignment. The tire shop just didn't want to do it...

 

those old tires stacked are very nice and show no signs of mis alignment wear. The difference in size between the 235 and the 30's are fairly small and should not have affected driveability. Your rip off tire shop did what they did so If the tires wear badly they wont have to warranty them...even if the tires wear because they are bad and not an alignment issure

 

This may not be the rule, but once a jeep is aligned either from factory or shop...they rarely need readjustment unless you take them apart or smash into something good. A lot depends on the tire too...on my old 92 I ran 2 sets of 31 revo's for a hair over 100k each set and the 3rd set went on my 01 for 40 or 50 k AFTER the set of 31 revo's that were on there wore out...so point is that after the original wheel alignments, i got over 350000 miles with no abnormal wearing. and your old tires show no abnormal wearing. . You might want to get an alignment done somewhere else to hold those tire people accountable if your new wheels are defective and they blame it on a non existent pitman issue

 

The statement about the pitman arm being worn out sounds like a cop-out to collect extra money for the job. Not uncommon at all for shops like this to do "insert here" free check to drum up the incentive to have other parts serviced. It's BS really. Go in for an alignment and " well your control arm bushings are wasted and we won't do the job until those are replaced, while they aren't brand new they also aren't wasted.

"OH while we were changing your oil we noticed your diff fluids and transfer case fluid aren't looking soo great in color, your Trans fluid is getting pretty dark as well, now we can change those out for your or you risk potentially damaging those components"

Just a big ol money grab

 

some points on XJ wheel alignment

A proper alignment should only be done by a shop that can give you a before and after printout of a laser alignment.

If they cant, forget it

Having said that, I think you are talking about a simple "toe-in" alignment, and the only thing affecting this is tie-rod ends

If they have not been altered, no change is needed

You can check yourself in two ways, see Youtube

The draglink only adjusts steering wheel position

With your front wheels both in dead ahead position, equidistant across front and rear of front tyres (zero toe in), the steering wheel should be dead ahead.

If not, the draglink is used to correct steering wheel position only

If your Jeep is not lifted, and has no shake, its probably ok, keep an eye on edge wear

A laser toe alignment costs $A50 with printout, the benefit being it shows caster and camber as well, but hopefully they dont need altering, good for lifted XJs