Cheap wheel alignment

[omegod]

Not sure if it's the done thing to post links on here but I needed to get the wonky steering sorted on my shite steed 306 and being an eternal tightarse used one of these vouchers from National tyres, actually charged me £14.10 which is handy as tracking is normally £30 + 

 

http://www.national.co.uk/special-offers-wheel-alignment.aspx

 

 

[dave21478]

Call me a pessimistic cynic if you like, but a garage earning under £15 to do a job that should take at least half an hour to do properly......oh and they just so happen to be in the business of selling tyres....

 

No thanks. its hard enough to find a garage that does wheel alignment properly at the best of times, but when they are earning fuck-all to do it I can just imagine......bang the gauges on, no time to check the tyre pressures first though, check the reading....is the steering wheel centred? fuck it, close enough....tracking is way off, adjust one track rod end to bring the average between both wheels back in spec and call it done. Never mind that the rack is now off-centre and the steering turns further one way than the other.... get it out and get the next one done....three more to do before closing time.

[brickwall]

I found NAtional okay, but it did seem rather quick. I'll stick to my independent with his laser whatnots

[andy18s]

When I replaced the wishbones on the Mrs' D3 the only tyre depot who had the advanced kit needed for a full camber,castor and tracking reset was National tyres

In fact the local LR dealer uses them to do their customers cars,at a huge mark up of course!

Full cost was £45 around 3 months ago

Of course I can't say if the same level of attention would go into a half price offer,but it would soon become apparent if a short cut was taken

[gordonbennet]

Obviously camber and castor are more intricate to measure, but wheel alignment is easy to measure and adjust.

 

For many years i used a simple measuring method of two thin copper pipes, one a sliding fit inside the other, and simply measured the distance between the wheels on the insides at as near mid height as the suspenion would allow, not as accurate as lazer but i'd trust that method over some ill trained youth that can't be arsed at some fast fit joint.

There are other heath robinson techniques, i've heard of leaning two ladders or other straight lines against the wheels and measuring the distance between them at several points along the length but never tried that meself.

 

However, my trusty measuring implement vanished so i invested in one of these, http://www.trackace.co.uk       took me a while to get me head round the method of use, but its astonishingly accurate and simple once you've sussed it out.                           

 

                                                                                                                          ^^^^ bloody link won't work but you'll find the thing if you search trackace.

[colino]

If you check (and you have to!) that all of the suspension is in good order and you have a decent matched pair of front tyres, the tolerances are so wide (especially on fwd) that a decent measuring tape/stick is a perfectly sound way of doing your own wheel alignment.  You will have the benefit too of rolling your car backwards and forwards to double check the alignment to load up the suspension, that a garage will never do.

[richardmorris]

I asked my local Citroen specialists where they took their (own) cars. Feltham tyres near Heathrow- they did a four wheel laser alignment( satellite dish things on the wheels and bounce lasers around then adjust as necessary). £63 for about an hour and the improvement was unbelievable. I took in the owners club's guide on specifications and they were happy to adjust things until it was spot on.

 

http://www.felthamtyre.co.uk/alignment.html

[twosmoke300]

Tracking is easy , wheel alignment ( ie having the steering wheel straight afterwards) is a bit more tricky . I'm also suspicious of places that do it really cheaply . There are certain procedures that you have to do to make it accurate and loads of places don't do them . The main one is to road test after jacking it up to fully settle the suspension .

[Pillock]

We had our daily tracked on the cheap - £15 on top of two new tyres, because the old tyres were worn heavily on one edge.

 

Now it droves straighter, but the wheel isn't centred which really hacks me off.

[cros]

I use a simple Gunson trackrite gauge and though very cheaply made it works great. Just drive over the crappy plastic thing and the needle tells you toe in or out in mm's. Actually better to gently push the vehicle over it for best results.

I've had mine for 15 years and done modern stuff, 4x4's, tractors, and small lorries. I got it when a bloke at ATS used a similar device outside because the bays were full. He mangled up the trackrod with his molegrips, so as with tyre fitting I thought why pay someone to fuck your car up when you can do it yourself at home for free?

[fordperv]

I pop to a local garage and ask a guy who I know, he laser aligns it, £10 into the lunch fund for him and the other lad and job done

[Guest Lord Sward]

That looks like a good offer.

[Richard]

Can you straighten the steering wheel by adjusting both track rod ends equally or does that bugger up the tracking?

[forddeliveryboy]

^^ Yes. No.

 

As cars get older and have had a few tracking adustments, they can suffer from big differences in trackrod length if one side is adjusted more than the other (assuming it's adjustable on both sides). This can create tracking which shows as correct in the straight ahead position, but once the wheels are turned things go out of kilter, tyres wear and cornering isn't as it oughta be.

 

So then you centre the rack and adjust the wheels till they're pointing correctly, finally repositioning the steering wheel. Not what garages would usually do, unless instructed. It's amazingly easy to do yourself, even if the final tracking has to be fine-tuned by a garage - but it's hardly difficult to measure yourself, with one of the kits available or Blue Peter-style with string, lengths of wood, axle stands or whatever.

[lisbon_road]

I like the idea of those drive over gauges as they are making a measurement dynamically, ie when the suspension is under at least a bit of load.

 

But I do exactly like Fordperv myself (there's a statement) and get a local garage to do it for a tenner cash, which goes in the pizza fund - unless the regional manager is in for the day in which case run away.

[omegod]

OP here, the 306 was all over the road and the steering wheel was half a turn out to the way it should have been. They spent about 25 min sorting it it and now drives true and the wheel is centered. Obviously it's not a full alignment set up but on a £150 smoker im not laying out mega cash on it so it did the job for me! ideal after a wishbone change or summat I guess.

[cros]

Heres one I drove over earlier. Tracking is spot on. Anyone remember when you used to see poor old tipper lorries driving down the road crabbing so bad the rear wheel stuck out a foot wider than the front? Lazer that.