Wheel Alignments... What ever happened to Old School??

robmacca said:

Well.....

We have only recently fitted some new shoes under the missus Prado and part of the deal included a Wheel Alignment (part of the leaseplan package). All good at this point..... After the Missus had driven it about a 1000kms I went for a drive and noticed some tyre noise coming from the tyres which shouldn't be the case with new A/T's.... When I got home, I had a quick check of the tread & noticed a slight bit of "feathering" from the inside edge. This had me concerned, so I booked the Car into a mates Steering Specialist workshop where I get all my cars done so he could check out the alignment that the Bridgestone Tyre shop had done. Now, my mate had done his apprenticeship long time ago as a front end specialist which is no longer available as a apprenticeship & hasn't been for years. When he put it on the machine, he said to me that it's out a bit and when was my last wheel alignment. I told him when I bought the tyres some 3wks ago. He informed that I was lucky that I bought it in otherwise I would have severely worn my new tyres by the time we would have gotten home from our outback trip. I asked how they could get it so wrong? He informed me that they would have just been setting it the recommended factory settings, same as all Car Manufacturers would do.... He went on to inform me that it's just not that simple & there's a lot more to it than that....

Now, he's the last of the Old School trained "Front End Specialists" that I know of around our area and when he retires, all that knowledge & skill that he has will be lost... He even get's some of the "so-called" suspension professionals coming to him when they can't solve front end issues....

Question.... What have others found with their local tyre people when it comes to wheel alignments? I now know not to trust the likes of Bridgestone/Bobjane, etc when it comes to my car, but what about the likes of Pedders, Fulcrums, etc ??

A good wheel alignment could save u 100's of dollars in the life of your tyres & I will gladly pay $65 per year or 2 to get good life from my tyres.....especially when the tyres are $300+ per tyre

BTW.... What pressure do people run in their tyres?? I'm running around 40psi in the front & 36>40psi in the rear

plus..... does anyone know of a good wheel alignment place in Brisbane.......perferably on the nth side? Currently I go to Caboolture for my wheel alignments, but would be nice to know of other places when my mate retires from his business

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qqc d22 said:

I went to five different shops with my old rodeo to get a wheel alignment to fix camber after i lifted it everyone had a go charged like a wounded bull and all of them said they couldnt change the angle and just added heaps of toe in to try and make the tyres wear at same level but means they wear a lot quicker. always chewed out the inside edge anyway. a week before i sold it meet a bloke who runs his own small tyre shop. one man show he said bring it in ill have a look. got it nearly perfect he said it had run out of adjustment due to being lifted so high but the tyres actually sat flat on the road before that it sat on the inner edge you could stick your fingers probly 2" under the outside of the tyre. goes to show but how useless the big name shops are

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