car steers left after alignment.

[Skylarking]

A lot of automotive shops start out good and turn to sh*t to earn a living when the greater majority of customers are "two dollar Tim's" wanting to pay as little as possible for their services.

Yes, we get what we put up with…, a PM being a “complete psycho” and a “horrible, horrible person” included

 

[Forg]

I could understand a wheel alignment taking a long time if the car is far from stock or has had a lot of work done and had the front and rear subframes out but on a stock car where everything otherwise is in good working condition a wheel alignment should take that long and a good operator would do a few basic check and make sure there is nothing worn before beginning said alignment.

I had ours done properly by a bloke with a good reputation for getting it right ... he took about 2 hours to do all 4 wheels.
He adjusted, measured, adjusted, measured; then took it out on the road to see how it felt, then came back & did it again. Took him 3 test-drives before he was totally happy.

It was, in hindsight, probably overkill because with Sydney's roads the way they are I'll bet it lasted 3 weeks before the first pot-hole knocked it outta whack.
The people who do it in half an hour probably get as close as right as he did, before he test-drove it the first time.

 

[vc commodore]

The other issue is, people don't want to pay the right money for a proper job for example, you can't quote on a wheel alignment, it takes as long as it takes at least $110 per hour including GST. You may be able to do it in the hour on some cars and other's may take 4 hours to get it spot on. Not many will pay $440 for a mint wheel alignment, so the shop starts doing roughies to accommodate what the majority of people want to pay.

A lot of automotive shops start out good and turn to sh*t to earn a living when the greater majority of customers are "two dollar Tim's" wanting to pay as little as possible for their services.

If it takes 4 hours to do a proper wheel alignment, one should be shot.....With the whole front and rear being replaced and everything being all over the shop, it should take no more than an hour....There is one car that can take hours to get right, which ain't a commodore....It's a 90's era Merc....You adjust the toe and the camber changes due to the design of the front end....But that is an exception to the rule....

I have had people with Mercs and BMW's come in, having $400+ quotes for an alignment by their stealerships, come to me and have it done for a fraction of the cost and been extremely happy....

And yes you deal with the tight asses that don't want to pay for the job, but that's part and parcel of all businesses....

 

[vc commodore]

(It's) Sad But True!

I've used one shop for probably 2 decades to get wheel alignments but the last time I was in there talking to the sales guy he shocked me with his attitude. Same shop owner but all different staff. Last time the Calais was there they didn't get the passenger rear tire to the correct toe setting because they didn't have the correct size spanner for the lock nut and couldn't get it loose.

Most recently after changing the front struts I did a basic wheel alignment at home with some string, a tape measure and a couple of rulers with the help of my son. Unfortunately my driveway isn't flat/level so doing anything other than toe is difficult and I know my front camber settings aren't quiet right but the car drives straight and we don't seem to have any tire wear issues so I'm satisfied for now. Still on the hunt for a new wheel alignment shop.

Just a little side note with your rear toe adjuster problem.....I have found over the years with VX toe adjusters (which I assume is the car the problem is related to), they seem to seize up more than the later model ones....The hex on the adjuster is thinner than the later model commodores...As in width and size....The size is a 17MM, where later ones are 18MM and a little wider.......So my suggestion is, remove it and use an anti seize grease on the thread.....As for the lock nut, never had a problem with those seizing up....So me thinks they are full of sheet with that one...

 

[Banjo79]

$400 would hurt for a road car, but if you have the cash, why not? Pedders charge me $140, tyre shops $70ish.
Just a theory, but because Pedders test drive it, unlike the rest I've been to, they'd really have to price for the possibility of alignment, test, re-tweak, test. Just the initial drive to say all good, wheel at 12 o'clock is worth the extra cash for me. The car handles noticeably better aswell, not sure about tyre longevity yet.
In summary, if possible get alignments done somewhere it's test driven and even more importantly, never assume a suspension/tyre shop won't either wash, or have washed by a third party, as in my case, your pride and joy.
F**k me, the "by hand" car wash they used to clean my "washed yesterday" paint, probably by a couple of Ford loving 18yo's, mauled the paintwork. I don't know the business, but I swear they must have used the wheel water from a 4wd with a broom!
I had spent some cash on other things, so it was obviously an ass kissing that left me with a painful bite!
If you give anyone your keys for so much as an inspection of something, you might feel stupid checking first, but as they say about assumption...

 

[J_D 2.0]

Yes this is an important function to ensure bigger problems aren’t afoot. But that’s a back office issue between the seller and their supplier and nothing to do with the buyer…

The company I work for is a wholesaler and we are normally between retail and the importer/manufacturer. Warranty claims flow back up the chain to the original supplier unless the original supplier insists on handling it directly themselves (direct handling of warranty claims is pretty rare in my area of business).

The end user returns the product to the retailer who returns it to us and then we return it to the original supplier. We don’t have any contact with the end user as that’s the retailers responsibility.

 

[RevNev]

If it takes 4 hours to do a proper wheel alignment, one should be shot

Obviously you've never seen a VE/VF wheel alignment done properly and if they're using a wheel alignment machine, it's not done properly, it's a compromise. You won't find a V8 Supercar on a wheel alignment machine where half a degree or couple of mm error is the difference between winning and losing. Wheel alignment specs are typically a +/- variance but there's an optimum setting in that and a settings at the extreme ends of variance spectrum. Most consider if a wheel alignment is on the edge of the variance spectrum and "just in spec", it's spot on when in fact it isn't.

 

[mpower]

for those complaining about the price for a decent alignment consider this.

a poor alignment in my case resulted in.

the price of the crappy alignment (yes it wasn't free believe it or not, I know right?)
unnecessary parts (wheel spacers - i was confused but accepted this as the mechanic said they were required).
a scrubbed out tyre (also surprisingly not free)
a damaged guard, yes this one really stung. my guard needed to be repaired and painted due to a hit over a half decent bump.
wasted time (what your time is free? mine isn't).
Another alignment to fix the above mess.

all in all a proper alignment looks like good value now yes?

Going on from the post above, this thread might be of interest to you: https://forums.justcommodores.com.au/threads/wheel-balance-issue-vf-sv6-sedan.290094/

Steering angle sensor relearn/recalibration for VF electric steering if none of the places you've taken to have tried it. I think the issue is that most places and aligners don't know this exists (including Holden), even good aligners. It's not even really mentioned on these forums.

The Fulcrum stores don't exist outside of QLD. The Fulcrum branding on small shops they have as dealers outside of QLD sure isn't necessarily a sign of quality from that shop though, it's the normal some are good and some are bad.

which is why i said "like". Stop letting tyre monkeys wreck your car.

 

[tommy_z]

So… who do people recommend for a wheel alignment in Sydney?

 

[Skylarking]

A decent wheel alignment isn’t rocket science and shouldn‘t take hours and hours to do.

The problem of poor wheel alignment is probably related to poor technical training and thus a lack of operator skill. Training people costs and some people simply aren’t up to the challenge of learning or caring. The fact staff probably aren’t paid enough to care about keeping their job probably doesn’t help to increase the care factor which I see in so many industries.

Combine this with the fact (as already pointed out) that a poor wheel alignment results in chewing out tyres prematurely and thus it results in another sale, there doesn’t seem to be a problem to solve from the companies perspective. Such customer service apathy has become the norm, after all, lower wages and increased sales is something all companies want…

Add the fact that vehicle programming is required for something that used to be a purely mechanical job and what can go wrong?

Really, it’s a fcuked up world where LCD and sliding to the bottom is the norm… why should wheel alignments be any different.