Some wheel alignment tips
Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 11:27 pm
Hey guys,
I've come across quite a few horror stories in my work as a wheel aligner and on the various car forums i check out. I thought i'd post something here since the older Subaru's (MY - L series) have some a pretty odd front end geometry that you should make sure your local tyre place pay attention to. BTW I'm at uni now so i'm quite happy to point out all the dodgy stuff that i've seen go on.
Straight up is some general stuff about tyre places.
First of all never go to a tyre place when they're busy. Book your car in, and book it in EARLY. Walking in the day after it's been pissing down with rain is the worst way to go about buying or servicing tyres.
Don't rely on the bloke selling you the tyres to be an expert. Most only have experience with the tyres their store stocks, and some chains would never have sold a Mickey Thompson or Coopers, let alone know what one is like. Do your own research to find out what you want. Then get on the phone to find the places who deal in the tyres you want and find the best price. Use places like the forums to work out what sizes etc to run.
Now onto wheel alignments.
Make sure the place you take it to actually does the wheel alignment. Sounds stupid, but some people get charged and it never gets done. Most of the time i saw this happen they're either extremely busy (hence never go when its busy), or the customer was a real hard ass with the pricing.
Ask them the last time they calibrated their wheel alignment machine. Aligners use very sensitive equipment to gather their measurements and it takes one slip or knock to put them out. If left they can be out by as much as .5mm or more, and when you're aligning to within .1mm you may as well have not done it at all. A good place will calibrate once a fortnight or so.
When you drop the car off ask for a print out with the manufacturers specs on it. This should show all the cars wheel measurements before and after the wheel alignment, as well as the manufacturers ideal measurements and tolerances. Keep in mind that on many cars the only adjustable component is toe, but it's not unreasonable for that to be done within .2 mm of manufacturers ideal.
Next time i go in to do my own car i'll get the L Series specs and post them up here.
Here's a tyre size calculator, lets you do cool stuff like work out how much bigger 27" muddies would be compared to stock tyres. http://www.exploroz.com/Vehicle/Tyres/SizeCalc.aspx
I've come across quite a few horror stories in my work as a wheel aligner and on the various car forums i check out. I thought i'd post something here since the older Subaru's (MY - L series) have some a pretty odd front end geometry that you should make sure your local tyre place pay attention to. BTW I'm at uni now so i'm quite happy to point out all the dodgy stuff that i've seen go on.
Straight up is some general stuff about tyre places.
First of all never go to a tyre place when they're busy. Book your car in, and book it in EARLY. Walking in the day after it's been pissing down with rain is the worst way to go about buying or servicing tyres.
Don't rely on the bloke selling you the tyres to be an expert. Most only have experience with the tyres their store stocks, and some chains would never have sold a Mickey Thompson or Coopers, let alone know what one is like. Do your own research to find out what you want. Then get on the phone to find the places who deal in the tyres you want and find the best price. Use places like the forums to work out what sizes etc to run.
Now onto wheel alignments.
Make sure the place you take it to actually does the wheel alignment. Sounds stupid, but some people get charged and it never gets done. Most of the time i saw this happen they're either extremely busy (hence never go when its busy), or the customer was a real hard ass with the pricing.
Ask them the last time they calibrated their wheel alignment machine. Aligners use very sensitive equipment to gather their measurements and it takes one slip or knock to put them out. If left they can be out by as much as .5mm or more, and when you're aligning to within .1mm you may as well have not done it at all. A good place will calibrate once a fortnight or so.
When you drop the car off ask for a print out with the manufacturers specs on it. This should show all the cars wheel measurements before and after the wheel alignment, as well as the manufacturers ideal measurements and tolerances. Keep in mind that on many cars the only adjustable component is toe, but it's not unreasonable for that to be done within .2 mm of manufacturers ideal.
Next time i go in to do my own car i'll get the L Series specs and post them up here.
Here's a tyre size calculator, lets you do cool stuff like work out how much bigger 27" muddies would be compared to stock tyres. http://www.exploroz.com/Vehicle/Tyres/SizeCalc.aspx
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