Dealer service drive in measures alignment as you drive in?

Did they do an alignment and was it out? My truck is pretty good at holding alignments but German cars are not. I'm in a bad road area but I've seen cars literally out of spec and actually wearing tires irregularly by 10k. But since tires average 1500 where I work, makes sense to fo alignments if symptoms are noticed

 

Ed's Tire in Morden. There's an Ed's in Carman as well. They've been amazing. Best prices on tires too. They've always come in lower than even online prices.

 

Quite possible we have the technology to make it happen. I think you should have noticed . It would need to have been pretty far out of alignment . As in trashing the front tires!

The very old alignments were done driving across a plate .

It must have been push an alignment week or month.

I pay a $100.00 for alignment but they are a very good shop that took some time to find.

 

Tks. I’ll have a look at Ed’s.

 

Mine does this also no charge.

 

Yes, that technology exists now….has for a few years.

 

What dealer?

 

Last time I was at a dealer, they had some odd contraptions strapped onto the rims of a car. The porter said it was a thing that measures alignment.

So a kid who cleans windows and parks cars is testing your alignment. Not saying it doesn’t work, but I would be wary.

 

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I would use that dealership again.

 

The last time I had an alignment was 1973

 

My local dealer has that contraption when you pull into the service reception area. It displays the results on a screen.

I was actually concerned about my alignment due to uneven tire wear but my truck was displayed in green (alignment O.K.) on the screen. Almost every other vehicle was shown in red.

I did go to another independent shop that confirmed that my alignment was good. I was only at the dealer to get the frame treatment.

 

It is one of those things the orders come down to the service writers .

This week/Month we push change the Cabin Air Filters add in any service your told to promote . i love when they want to do the transmission flush on your manual transmission.

Fact of life in any high overhead dealer service

 

I've seen the machine while dropping off my truck a while ago for the frame treatment. Was curious about it and just looked at the Hunter website. The alignment is checked with 16 photos of each wheel. They scan the license plate to know what car it is and also document the vehicle condition so a customer can't blame them for preexisting damage. The tread scan is also interesting that it checks several spots instead of reading just one line of tread. Just like so many things in the world, automation is taking the guess work away from the employees. I vividly remember as a teenager trying to get a tire shop to honor a treadlife warranty. They kept claiming it was worn unevenly and the manager was using a plunger style tread tool but she wouldn't let him see the results or hold the tool to see for himself because it was indeed worn evenly and they were just cheap tires that they never figured anyone would remember had a warranty.

 

CAN you tell by watching the car...only if your an expert or if it's SUPER out. a little off or a little camber off, even enough to cause a pull...eyeball...hell no you can't. do they use some sort of computerized sensors? still doubt it. find a new place...why go to a dealership for anything but warranty and recalls anyway!? total rip off for service!!

a proper 4 wheel alignment is gonna cost you at least $80 and that was 10 years ago in little po dunk east texas. I'd expect to pay 90-100 for a 4 wheel. even my local bargain mechanic would charge me nearly 80...at $60 all they're checking is front toe only...that's not an alignment

 

My guy hooks me up. Definitely four wheels. But even the listed price is still less than 100USD.

Seems even mechanic bills are bigger in Texas

 

To me that seems like a good selling tool for the dealership. No doubt the tech is probably pretty accurate but still I feel like a real person needs to verify the results of the test before selling a service. In the world we live in that's becoming increasingly rare. I mean we now wait for a warning light to inspect our tire pressures. Used to be that was something that we did regularly. Now we have a computer do it. This still only going to be more common.

 

They have one of those drive-over alignment measuring things at the local BMW dealer. They said it used lasers to measure the car’s alignment. They didn’t try to sell me an alignment, but I never went back. The BMW is long gone. But I bet the thing paid for itself several times over…