Tbh the same thing happened to me with Dracula after visiting Whitby Abbey. Standing where the actual story was shaped made me realize how much the atmosphere carries the horror, not just the plot beats. Now I read the book completely different than I did before, so I get exactly where you're coming from.

...and that battery trick is genius, I gotta start doing that. I feel you on the whole trust thing though, man. I had a Honda come in last month, customer said the same thing, just had it aligned at one of those tire chains. I put it up and the toe was so far off the tires were gonna be bald in two weeks. The annoying part is I can't even blame the tech, half those places pay flat rate and rush everything. You're right that it's not always the rack either, I've chased a pull for hours only to find a bad tire that looked fine on the balancer. But yeah, when I see their sheet and my numbers don't match, I just redo it and don't even argue with the customer anymore. It's just easier to fix it and move on than explain why their "free lifetime alignment" is garbage.