Who's the best alignment shop?
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I heard Valley Alignment in Moorhead is good? I believe that is where Tim from IDrags work.
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west fargo car clinic is good too.
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KA-T_240;166395 wrote:
Agreed, unless I know the ticklemedaly is doing my car.how did yours turn out? :icon_king:
Both of our stores (Fargo and Moorhead) have the same 3-D aligners, but the Moorhead store has it set up with the inground hoist, so there is almost no angle to drive up. Ours in Fargo kinda sucks for very low/ground effected vehicles so to speak.
and CMK, what was wrong with your alignment from TP?
As for alignment packages, as long as everything is adjustable, normal price for 4 wheel is $69.99, 3yr/36K is $149.99, and a lifetime (as long as you own the vehicle) is $199.99....but that is Normal prices. We have coupons out there everywhere. Any additional adjustments that can be done that require additional work (i.e. strut grinds) typically run an additional 1/2 hour labor each.
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what's the tire store next to kennedy transmission? I had a pretty stupid experience there and will not be returning.
I took my audi there and had to convince the tech that front camber was adjustable and then had to demonstrate how to do it.
No provision was made to try and center the rack or anything like that.. Audi makes a factory tool for locking the rack dead-on-center but this guy never even thought of that.. even though i told him that the steering wheel had been off and may not have been on the proper spline.
Doing a really good job on an alignment takes time, and i dont think anyone could make any money doing a proper alignment for $70. Maybe on water-bed suspension cars it doesn't matter, but doing procedures like alignment, headlight aiming, etc in a BMW have specific requirements around how much weight is in each seating position, how much fuel in the tank, and so on. Hell, my M5 has load-adaptive rear suspension.. the rear ride height (and thus camber due to the trailing-arm rear suspension) is electronically adjustable. Run of the mill shops don't know and don't care, usually because they've got customers that don't know and don't care.
I actually watched the display terminal and it called out how much weight to put in each seating position before taking measurements and making adjustments.. but of course nobody does that.
I've been meaning to learn how to do ruler & string alignments myself. There are very few jobs I outsource any more.. its just too frustrating to pay real money to have the job done badly.
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if you take your Audi to tires plus and expect them to have the Audi steering wheel holder, your pretty stupid.
And on the BMW, if you can adjust the rear ride height, how do you align it? If you change the setting, wont the camber be effected? Do you have to realign it?!?also, why do some places charge differently depending on if you want the front or both axles done? how the hell do you do an alignment without doing the rear?
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ticklemedaly;166400 wrote:
how did yours turn out? :icon_king:Both of our stores (Fargo and Moorhead) have the same 3-D aligners, but the Moorhead store has it set up with the inground hoist, so there is almost no angle to drive up. Ours in Fargo kinda sucks for very low/ground effected vehicles so to speak.
and CMK, what was wrong with your alignment from TP?
As for alignment packages, as long as everything is adjustable, normal price for 4 wheel is $69.99, 3yr/36K is $149.99, and a lifetime (as long as you own the vehicle) is $199.99....but that is Normal prices. We have coupons out there everywhere. Any additional adjustments that can be done that require additional work (i.e. strut grinds) typically run an additional 1/2 hour labor each.
It was not the TP up here rather the a couple of them down in the cities that I have had bad experiences with. From what I have seen here you guys do good work, but knowing what happened to me before has scared me off for now.
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Gundar1;166448 wrote:
So if i went to valley imports to get my jetta realigned and camber realigned would they charge one rate or by the hour?it all depends on if the camber is adjustable, which I dont believe it is. I havn't adjusted a VW for such a long time. If it is adjustable from the factory (no special tools, loosen bolts and make adjustment anotherwords) then there are no additional charges involved.
2 wheel involves only adjusting front. Many vehicle have no adjustments in the rear (trucks, suvs, vans).
As for the Audi, we get 1 Audi in the shop a week. Audi specs call for a good 2 hour alignment with special tools that the Technicians are required to purchase (we are not like the dealer where the tools are available on hand). If I see one a year for an alignment, why would I purchase a set of $500 tools for one set of vehicles? If you truly wanted the full Audi alignment, no shop in town other than the dealer would align it to 100% specs, but at a huge cost to you, not the $45 toe set that most vehicles are in need of.
End rant.
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slowvo;166477 wrote:
shit, i totally forgot that those rear axles arent adjustable....dont see any that are not on the European side of cars.there are some german/vw ones that have sold "beam" axles that arn't adjustable. It all depends on if the manufacture made them adjustable or if there are aftermarket parts available to adjust them (like replacement control arms). Some solid rears are able to be shimmed.
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