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Front control arms gone after 53k on GTS

Skylarking

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There was tyre shop who had a generic wheel alignment sheet off their machine and they'd change the rego number and give everyone the same sheet for the same model vehicle
= fraud…
Whether a tyre shop tries to do the right thing depends on how well the law is structured and applied, their business model,some are good and some are extremely bad.
Fixed that for you :p

I‘d rather see a couple tyre places hung out to dry for having poor business practices that could result in a crash (in the worst instance of business negligence). That way the pressure will be to employees more qualified people to do the job and thus they can provide a safe and quality service… but it will cost more amd I’m ok with that.

Sadly, as a country we have been sliding for years wrt service quality. We seem to simply accept that chasing the LCD of the business world is an ok strategy :eek:

That means we have to search for quality service places which are getting harder to find as the knowledgable old farts retire and the very few young ones that know what they are doing become equivalent of needles in the haystack :oops:
 

hademall

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That means we have to search for quality service places which are getting harder to find as the knowledgable old farts retire and the very few young ones that know what they are doing become equivalent of needles in the haystack :oops:
I’m a bit concerned now, after having just had new tyres and a wheel alignment done at my local Bob Jane. I don’t think I previously had a problem with wheel alignment before, given that my original tyres had done 60,000 ks, although I did have two wheel rotations in that time. One at the a local tyre shop which rotated the tyres as I wanted, and the second at the dealers who didn’t rotate them as I wanted and left rattle gun rash on one of the wheels! For the last 15,000Ks I just rotated them myself.
 

lmoengnr

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Did it raise the ride height much? Urethane strut tops used have that tendency and they'd complain with lowered cars, it's higher at the front now!!
If it did, it certainly wasn't noticeable, but the original ones weren't flogged out and sagging.
 

RevNev

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Alot of shops would prefer to use the setting scope provided by the alignment machine, rather that actually read the tyre wear pattern and adjust accordingly....ie, it's in the green so it is good....

.About 15 years ago, I worked in a tyre shop doing wheel alignments about 500 metres from a Pedders franchise....That particular franchise had all sorts of problems with their alignment machine...As a result, they sent their alignments to me to do and unfortunately for the poor customer, got charged about double what pedders got charged for the job...I reckon I did it for them for about 3 months straight
We had a good suspension shop sponsor us with wheel alignments racing HQ Holden's in '97 and they were allowed 3 degrees negative camber. We found when camber was set at 3 degrees, the alignment machine didn't read toe properly and zero toe on the machine was about 10mm toe in. When camber was set +/- 1 degree, toe read perfectly on this machine but not at high camber angles. We couldn't get the car going faster even with top horsepower engine and we got one of the fast guys to drive it. He said it goes alright but handles like sh*t, won't turn in and understeers badly then we discovered the toe discrepancy. Fixing that took the car from running 9th and 10th to 3rd and 4th immediately!

From that day forward Dec '97, my wheel alignment machine is a camber/caster gauge, a ball of string, steel ruler and a trammel bar for toe. String lining a car is deadly accurate and can't lie!
 
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krusing

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Im my 1977 LX 4.2 Manual Sedan Torana days,
There was a good local front end specialist in Sandringham/Cheltanham on Bay Road "Ducats Front End Centre"
They set my Torana up with 1 degree negative camber, and it cornered superbly,
as I had Western 5 slotters with Bridgestone Steel Belt Radials [With the White Writing on the Wall]
as they knew how my Torana was driven :D,
it was a Tone of Fun ;)
Hindsight is a wonderfull thing.
 
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vc commodore

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Im my 1977 LX 4.2 Manual Sedan Torana days,
There was a good local front end specialist in Sandringham/Cheltanham on Bay Road "Ducats Front End Centre"
They set my Torana up with 1 degree negative camber, and it cornered superbly,
as I had Western 5 slotters with Bridgestone Steel Belt Radials [With the White Writing on the Wall]
as they knew how my Torana was driven :D,
it was a Tone of Fun ;)
Hindsight is a wonderfull thing.

And this is where the knowledge of the older generation is being lost unfortunately....This place you mention obviously knew how to set a car up properly, but due to the younger generation not wanting to learn, means this sort of knowledge is being lost to the industry and you consumers are suffering as a result..
 

vc commodore

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We had a good suspension shop sponsor us with wheel alignments racing HQ Holden's in '97 and they were allowed 3 degrees negative camber. We found when camber was set at 3 degrees, the alignment machine didn't read toe properly and zero toe on the machine was about 10mm toe in. When camber was set +/- 1 degree, toe read perfectly on this machine but not at high camber angles. We couldn't get the car going faster even with top horsepower engine and we got one of the fast guys to drive it. He said it goes alright but handles like sh*t, won't turn in and understeers badly then we discovered the toe discrepancy. Fixing that took the car from running 9th and 10th to 3rd and 4th immediately!

From that day forward Dec '97, my wheel alignment machine is a camber/caster gauge, a ball of string, steel ruler and a trammel bar for toe. String lining a car is deadly accurate and can't lie!

The best alignment machine I have ever used and would love to get my mitts on for home is a cervix....Bloody brilliant machines....I only know of one currently being used in Adelaide, by an old school mechanic with a tyre store as part of his businesses...

I used to use an alignment machine that used a string line going to the rear of the car....Beissbarth unit....It was a pain in the ass...A little bit of wind the camber and toe readings would change instantly....I was glad the boss threw that over his shoulder
 

Forg

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Having had a few "generic tyre fitter" alignments done in the past which took maybe 15 minutes, I booked Greener (that's the Commodore's name) into East Coast Suspensions for a 4-wheel alignment a few years back ... I didn't want to annoy the owner by talking at him, but in the end he took about 2 hours, as he did 3-4 test-drives with tweaks in between before he was happy with the result. This may be overkill for a car which is primarily used trundling between traffic lights ... :)
 
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