Poor Shop Work and What I Have Done to Fix

About 2 years ago I bought my truck off of a family member. Its a 2013 Tacoma Baja Package. It had roughly 38,000 miles. The family member I bought it from had a local shop do a lot of work to it. Front and rear bumpers, aftermarket lights, lift, wheels and tires. All the work they did was poor at best. Truck was almost undrivable. So it just sat until I bought it at a great family discount. This picture is roughly how it looked at the time. It has Road Armor Stealth bumpers, A 6" BDS coilover lift, lights out the wazoo, 18" rockstars, and 285 Cooper STT Pro's.

 

First thing to try to do was get the truck to drive okay. I figured I should start with some communication with BDS, which at first was no response from them, but eventually I got in contact with a very helpful person. I had obviously already tried getting the truck aligned, no luck. The representative from BDS suggested that the Preload on the coil overs may not be correct. So I looked into that. Turns out he was right. The shop never set them up, just installed them in the truck. I was able to get the preload set properly. This drastically helped the steering after another alignment. Still no luck with the alignment but the truck was driving much better. This picture shows how much lower the driver side was than the passenger. The electrical tape was marking the starting point.

 

At this point I don't know what to think about my alignment issues. The truck has never been wrecked and the BDS lift is now installed correctly. The truck is driving much better though. The Cooper tires are shot from the poor alignment so I replaced them with some Mastercraft all terrains. See the first picture posted. Those didn't last long as i put a stick through the sidewall hunting. I decided that I wanted smaller wheels anyway, I just don't care for big wheels. With a BDS 6" lift the smallest wheel you can fit is an 18". So I ordered some 16's and some spidertrax wheel spacers for the front only. I paired them with BFG All Terrains sized 285/75/16. They mounted just fine. I also got to work removing the light bar on the roof as well as the Baja stickers, turns out I'm also not a fan of graphics. I also installed some rough country side steps that I got off the local facebook marketplace (not pictured).

 

Have you thought about finding a competent shop to maybe take another look at your suspension if you still aren't happy with it? I think BDS is supposed to be a decent setup...they sure aren't cheap.

Can they tell you what isn't aligning?

 

The alignment is still an issue. Luckily I don't put many miles on my truck. I have put ~12,000 miles on my truck in a little over 2 years. While fixing the coilovers I noticed that the shop had used a rough country skid plate instead of the one that came with the BDS lift. That I don't really care about. But I also noticed they installed ReadyLift Uniball Upper Control Arms. Thanks to some of the geniuses' on this site I learned that the BDS lift is meant to work with factory upper control arms. The ReadyLift ones are made for a 2-4" lift. BINGO. This is why I can't align my truck! I ordered some OEM upper control arms and removed the ReadyLift ones. Sad because they are in great shape and heavy built but now I should be able to align the truck properly. I'll find out next week.

 

I live in a small town in the middle of no where. I have big-o who has been no help, an older gentleman who has a good reputation but was out of his element with this suspension (I asked him), and another shop that I do not trust. I replaced all ball joints on a 4runner I had. I took it to them for an alignment. Hours go by so I drove over. My vehicle was in the same spot I parked it, unmoved. I went inside to see what was up. They informed me that all my ball joints needed replaced before they could align it. I lost my shit.

 

I have had similar happen recently. My wifes 335i had an exhaust rattle. The BMW dealer told me it needed a new turbo to the tune of 7800$. I replaced the spring bolt and the rattle went away.

 

It is hard to trust shops. I always do all of my own work except tires and alignments. Imagine how many people get taken advantage of.

 

How it sits now, dirty and awaiting the alignment. On my list of to-do's still is replace the rear taillights, get new drip molding to cover where the light bar was, and replace the missing headlight trim.

 

I've got drip moldings for the roof you can have. PM me if you're interested and we can figure out shipping.

 

Mike714, if Oneal doesnt want the roof drip molding I am interested. Just had my front window replaced and they messed up both sides of the drip molding. It could very well be do to dry rot though, but still frustrating.