Taco alignment could have gone bad

I just had JBA uca's put on the Taco, and of course I had an alignment - all good now. But what they found concerned me ... the last alignment about 4 months ago at a Toyota dealer - the tech put the wrong nut on the camber concentric bolt and must have spun it on with an impact, not realizing, caring or checking that the wrong size nut completely flattened the threads on the bolt. I'm lucky that nut had enough friction to stay on, cause if it would have pushed back off it could have been ugly. I guess I will be having a "chat" with the service manager next week. Damnit people, how long does it take to twist a nut on for the first few threads to make sure it's not crossthreaded or otherwise before hitting it with an impact.

Same thing last year with my sons car... new tires and one lug nut crossthreaded so bad I broke the stud getting it off. And this is why I own a jack and a torque wrench.

Rant over, I'll politely step off my soapbox now

 

I had a dumb ass tech use the wrong size lug nut adapter on my TRD Pro 4Runner matte black wheels.
Shredded the paint on the wheel around the lug nuts.
He also ran a piece of metal along the wheel while he had each of them spinning on the balance machine (which had to be intensional).

Needless to say... he doesn’t work there no more.

That was cosmetic and not potentionally dangerous like your but techs do this frequently, which is why I always wait on my cars and watch them do the work.

I trust no one because very few people treat the cars they work on as if they were their own. Those techs that do great jobs on my truck I give very nice tips to. Its so hard to find good people to work on your cars.

 

Several of those types of incidents that happened to me at a young age turned me in to a lifelong mechanic and DIY'er. Alignments are one of the few things I still take my trucks in for. I'd be pretty upset with this mistake, too.

 

@DesertRatliff
Yep x10, except the alignments which I do DIY. It use to be rather dismal finding someone where you are at that could do a proper alignment. Hope its gotten better.

 

A friend of mine had his car worked on at a shop a few months back. Brought it to me for new front brakes. Two studs snapped off in the lugnuts upon removal by hand.

He called the shop and bitched, their answer was: “He should have used an impact to remove them.” I told him to ask what would happen if he got a flat on the side of the road. The tech said: “have it towed here, what else would you do?”

He’s never been back to that shop.