Would you accept this alignment?

As the title says. See below for the specs and a photo of the steering wheel. The specs looks good to my eye but the steering wheel is bothering me. Note the positions of the stalks if you're not seeing the misalignment. It tracks mostly straight but it's hard to tell with our roads around here. 
 

This is the second round on this alignment. The first had the wheel turned so far to the left I could hardly believe it. 

The same shop (local Big Brand Tire) did the alignment previously and it was perfect. I'm betting that tech has moved on at this point. 
 

I'm a perfectionist with my own work so I'm looking for input on how reasonable this is. 
 

Steering wheel looks like my old 986, so fine? If anything, I could nitpick the LR still. 

If find another shop for the first go round no matter what. 

The alignment looks technically near-perfect, but the lack of caster/camber stack from side-to-side to account for road crown means that it could pull to the right on roads with any sort of crown in real-life driving.

They took $500 of my dollars for two tires and the alignment so I'm trying to squeeze that as much as I can. The maintenance budget is being pulled a lot of directions right now. 
 

but yes, next alignment will be at a better shop. I realize that if I want perfection I'll have to pay for it. 

In reply to NickD :

I've never noticed this effect in my area. This car has always tracked dead straight with the wheel straight. 
 

when I get home I'll dig up my old alignment sheet and see what the specs were. 

The numbers look fine. In my experience you get what you pay for with alignment shops. Most places will get you into the recommended range but that's about it. I would ask them to straighten out the wheel. It usually takes a couple tries with these cars unless they have the tool to lock the steering column.

This is what happens when they let the machine do all the thinking, and drive it from the rack to the lot without driving it down the street. I would take it back until they got it right, or gave me my money back. If the wheel isn't straight the alignment was not done properly.

The numbers look great for a street alignment but if the steering wheel isn't straight bring it back and have them fix that.

I'm not seeing the problem here. Maybe lay off the caffeine a little? (that's a joke!) But seriously, wheel and specs look spot on to me. 

That alignment is better than just about every one I've done personally (and I'm a bit of a perfectionist) and the wheel looks about as straight as you can reasonably expect. Keep in mind the stalks might not be even side to side. I actually tend to leave the wheel in my cayman a bit off to the right specifically because it lines up better with the stalks that way.

Yeah it's a pretty good alignment, as good as you can expect from any chain shop. Looks like the steering wheel is off to the left slightly but it seems pretty minor. If you want a better alignment you'll need to take it to an independent shop or a race shop (and prices will be increased to suit).

dps214 said:

That alignment is better than just about every one I've done personally (and I'm a bit of a perfectionist) and the wheel looks about as straight as you can reasonably expect. Keep in mind the stalks might not be even side to side. I actually tend to leave the wheel in my cayman a bit off to the right specifically because it lines up better with the stalks that way.

Yeah, sometimes the points of reference are off. Some of the GM vehicles we align at work do not have a flat top across the column shroud, they're designed kind of lopsided intentionally, which throws off your perception. Also something I've noticed is that on the GM trucks is that the column doesn't come straight out of the dash even, it's actually kicked off a little to the left, which really makes it hard to gauge how straight the wheel is.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. The spec sheet is more for reference. I'm happy with the numbers. The steering wheel alignment is the real rub for me but I might choose to get over it. It's not a perfect car. If it tracks straight I'll leave it alone. 
 

the first time I got it back the wheel looked like this. They were able to adjust it to what you see in the first post. 

 

edit: stalks are level. It's a good point of reference. My wife's Subaru came from the factory with a misaligned wheel about equal to the photo in the first post. Maybe that's normal. 

My OCD would have serious issues with a steering wheel that is mis-aligned, not being dead level, while going straight ahead.

Apply the brakes, turn the steering wheel to its stop to the right, apply a lot of force against the stop.

It will shift the rack a teensy amount and probably straighten the wheel out just fine.

Or you may have a tire pull that you can't tell because of the power steering.  Some cars are really bad for this when directional tires are used.  Even my Volvo changes about five degrees depending on directional winter tires or nondirectional summer tires.  My manual steering Golf was practically undriveable with directional tires on it because it had an incessant drift to the left no matter how many tires I tried. 

Another thing to consider is to check an alignment, you need to drive down the center of a straight road.  The problem with trying to compensate for road crown with alignment is that only works on one specific road.

In reply to spandak :

The wheel is off, and I bet its  more noticeable than the picture makes it out to be. 

If it was me, I would turn the tie rod end one turn on both sides. Make it shorter on the passenger and longer on the driver side. See where this gets you. 

In reply to Slippery :

That far off is about one flat, or 1/6th turn.

Driving in to work today and I can't ignore it. I don't think I have actual OCD but little things like this make me all tense. 
 

The front tires are brand new. I might see if anything changes when they wear in a little bit with so little camber/toe I suspect nothing will really change. 
 

thanks for the reference on the tie rod adjustment, might take a crack at it. I've aligned before with strings but that was a cut up driveway and the result was poor. Since then I'm not eager to do any aligning myself. 

Bringing this back. I'm obsessing mildly

Thr car pulls to the right a little on a flat road. If I let go of the wheel it will straighten out and then the car slowly moves towards the right line. 
 

I rotated the front wheels side to side to see if there was a tire issue. No change. Tire pressures are good and even. 
 

Why is the car pulling? My understanding is camber and caster changes will cause pulling but mine are good and even. I'm planning to adjust the tie rods later this week but I'm not sure that will fix it. 

In reply to spandak :

To be a weenie, that is a drift, not a pull.  A pull will turn the wheel.

I'm a weenie because I get this all the time.  "CAR PULLS HARD RIGHT".  I drive it with my hands off the wheel and I don't change lanes into the ditch...

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Fair. It's a drift. But the wheel does turn back to center. It's minor but it's there

Yeah, the wheel is a tiny bit off. So is mine in the BRZ, but like your sheet, the specs are exactly what I asked for. Althrough mine is a street car, I have a much more aggressive alignment. But I am considering having them dial in a bit more rear toe-in. 

So I don't worry about it. If I was THAT OCD, I could pull the wheel and move it one spline I guess? 

In reply to z31maniac :

One spline is usually a LOT.  And then all sorts of other things get screwed up 

I am OCD enough that I turn lock to lock in both directions to make sure that the steering wheel moves an even amount from center, and then align from there.  Some vehicles with no master spline on the rack (Honda) can be 1/4 turn or more in one direction or the other, from the factory!

That off center wheel would drive me nuts. In my experience typically tire shops never get it right. Dealer or race shop. And the dealer generally doesn't like "out of spec" alignments. Porsche might be different. 

I can understand wanting it to be absolutely perfect but trying to fix it yourself by making arbitrary adjustments is not going to be the way. If you want it right, take it to someone who knows what they're doing and make sure the process includes doing the alignment with someone about your size (or just you) in the driver's seat.