Wheel Alignment & Balance

[hutchjnr- MTM GTi]

Hi everyone,

Just wanting peoples thoughts on wheel alignments and balancing.

How often should they be done and are there any places it should be taken, or is "Ultratune" or a similar type business, be good enough?

Cheers,

Ben

[Manaz]

I'd go to the appropriate specialist - a good tyre shop for balancing, a good suspension place for alignment.

[hutchjnr- MTM GTi]

Cheers Manaz.

What would be a reasonable price for each?

[Manaz]

$10-$25 a wheel for balancing (lower if you're buying tyres, sometimes thrown in for free). Alignments vary, I paid $120 for a four wheel alignment to my specifications recently.

[hutchjnr- MTM GTi]

How often do u get your wheels balanced and/or alligned?

Supposing you don't change your wheels/tyres...

[JustCruisn]

Every 5000km, or when things get shaky or pull to one side. Cost me about $70 a go.

[DIDZ]

Hi everyone,

Just wanting peoples thoughts on wheel alignments and balancing.

How often should they be done and are there any places it should be taken, or is "Ultratune" or a similar type business, be good enough?

Cheers,

Ben

Alignment every 7500kms.

Not a Pedders or a Jax if you've got coilovers or modified suspension. If you've got a Falcodore or small car that would be fine. Modifed - you take it to a specialist who knows where each hair on his arse is.

I used to have a really good bloke around my area, all of my cars came out with the steering wheel straight and the car going straight (tracking along roads within tolerance).

Now, it seems most alignment places come out with the wheel on an angle, and the steering floating to a direction. Abysmal.

As you can tell I'm picky with steering and run on the "feel" of the car with it.

Edit - I would have said 5000km at the same time you're changing over oil, but went for 7500 as it's a happy medium considering people don't pay as much time to steering.

[hutchjnr- MTM GTi]

I do have coilovers/ modified suspension, so looks like I'll try and find a good place in Melbourne (Northern Suburbs).

If anyone knows of a good place in Melb, give me a shout out

[rikard1]

i got some new tyres from my local bridgestone shop and rather than let them do an alignment for $49 i thought id pay a bit more and go somewhere reputable where they know what theyre doing.

so i asked my brother to take it to Heasmans to get an alignment because he's on holiday and for $44 they did an alignment and had a good look at the whole suspension like i asked (i only bought it three weeks ago). only thing is the steering wheel was a little off centre before it went in and it came out exactly the same way so i have a question;

can the steering wheel be somehow centred without affecting alignment or do u have to undo nuts and bolts and stuff that would affect the alignment?

[gavs]

Not sure about northern suburbs for good VW people, there are a few in the inner eastern burbs of melbourne though...

Be wary when you get an "alignment" though, depending on your car, there is the smallest amount of camber adjustment, max of around 0.3 degrees (unless you have camber adjustment plates) and the only thing they can really adjust is front end toe, unless you have a 4motion car.....