Alignment issue. I think they want my money.

[Grantstead]

Got my lovely new Yaris a few days ago. It pulls slightly to the right, and I have to hold the steering wheel a smidge off-center to get it to go straight, and once I inflated the tires properly I noticed some odd road noise at highway speeds. I figured, no problem. I'll get an alignment and new tires...right now it's got a half-worn Kumho right-front, half-worn Goodyear left-front, and a pair of Arizonans on the back. I noticed that one of the Arizonans is noticeably more worn on one side...but of course have no idea if it's due to where it is or not, as the previous owner might've rotated the tires recently.

The chain auto repair shop I took it to told me I had a "badly bent" control arm and engine cradle, and that they needed $3000 to fix it. I demanded to see it, so they put it on a lift...it's not noticeably off-center so far as I can tell. I know minor imperfections make a difference, but I find it hard to believe a $3000 job is the only way to fix a problem that's practically invisible to the naked eye.

Upon pressing, he admitted he didn't know if the cradle was damaged. Oddly enough, the entire underside of the car is utterly pristine, even at 82k miles - except a trio of scratches. Not very deep, but they've been there long enough to accumulate a small amount of rust. Two on the right-front control arm, and one on the engine cradle. But again, they're very small.

And I've had these people try to rip me off before on brakes...wanted more than half a grand for a full brake job, I took it somewhere else and they walked me through what actually had to be done (much less than the other place had said) and did it for a fraction.

So I'm not inclined to blindly trust their doomsday predictions. However, I have no idea how long it took for that tire to become unevenly worn, or whether or not the previous owner rotated his tires regularly.

I made sure he gave me a printout of the alignment test results. Very impressive, lots of angry-looking red. But is it really as bad as he said it is? Is there a cheaper, easier way to fix it, or even almost fix it? I have a place that, if I buy my tires from them, they'll rotate them as often as I like for free...if I can get this car straight enough that a rotation every 3-5k will keep things from getting bad, I'll be happy.

Camber: -0.7 -1.3
Cross-camber: 0.6
Caster: 4.9 3.8
Cross-caster: 1
Toe: -0.48 0.52
Total toe: 0.04

Rear toe: 0.09 -0.06
Thrust angle: 0.07

Was this guy lying through his teeth that I really need to replace the control arm and maybe engine cradle to fix this? Can I get this adjusted at least to nearly straight, just rotate my tires with extreme regularity, and it'll be fine? Or do I need to call up a mechanic I used to know and see if he can help me install an aftermarket control arm? Spent much of the morning trying to find correct alignment specs for my Yaris, with no luck.

Edit: Forgot to mention...also, on the diagnostic sheet they report airing up my tires to a uniform 32psi. This seemed a little low, since all four tires have a max of 44psi I'd have inflated them to about 40. So I got out my pressure gage...turned out three of the tires were in the low 20s, and one was in the mid teens due to the fact that it had a nail in it. (stupid low-profile tires, can be hard to tell unless you're looking for it if it's just mostly flat)

And forgot to mention that it was odd for the rest of the car's underside to be pristine when numerous other things - the oil pan, the fiberglass bit beneath the bumper, etc - are lower to the ground than the control arm and should have been damaged as well.