Precision 4 wheel alignment for Octy RS Sydney

[brad]

Spinning Wheel would be my first choice these days. I haven't used them but on my other forum several (very fussy) members have & were very happy. (M3 Bimmer & latest Polo with Koni dampers)

Heasemans are my 2nd choice but:
a) Doug is getting really bloody old - he was old when I was doing alignments 25 years back!
b) Doug uses a mechanical machine still (there's a computerised machine now as well but I've not been to Heasemans for about 5 years). He's an absolute wizard with the mechanical aligner but for a 4 wheel alignment he still has to reverse the car on to do the rears & I can't see how he works out where the thrust line is.
Doug is still one of the top alignment guys in Sydney though.
3rd choice might be Wholesale Suspension out near Penrith or East Coast Suspension at Caringbah.

There should be no need to take specifications to the aligner unless you want "something special". A good aligner will use the factory specs as a guide only & look at the wear on the tyres to determine what needs adjusting. A good aligner prefers to do the alignment on the old tyres.

There was a thread about Octavia wheel alignment settings in this forum previously where I listed the specs & also some comments about real life setup from my old work partner from when we had the alignment bay at Wheels in Rockdale in the '80s. I moved on when he went back to NZ but he still does wheel alignments 25 years later & is one of the best in Tauranga (all of NZ I'd think).

PS: Don't expect an alignment by a good experienced operator to come cheap. Budget on $90-$180 depending on how many adjustments they have to make.

edit: Search function works! My previous post on wheel alignment for Octavia

[BottomScratcher]

Thanks for the post brad. I changed back to front about 4 weeks ago, so I'm booking in to Spinning Wheels before I wear another shoulder down while confirming specs. You're dead right, the specs are a guide, and the wear patterns truly tell the story of what needs adjusting, and by how much.

From what I've heard around the traps I thought Spinning Wheels might be the place to go, but it's good to have a recommendation from someone with such a good understanding of not just doing the job, but doing it precisely in order to achieve the best result. If I thought near enough was good enough I wouldn't have bothered looking for a recommendation in the first place.

[brad]

Took the Octavia to Spinning Wheel for a 4-wheel alignment yesterday because:
a) I fitted some Eibach springs a couple of weeks back which lowered the front 30mm & the rear 10mm (so I figured the front will be toeing in a bit)
b) The car has never had a wheel alignment in 103500km. Tyre wear patterns have always been acceptable so i figured why fix what isn't broken.

My thoughts:

• They have a really nice wheel alignment machine. I wish I had one.
• The alignment guy does lots of VWs & is fully aware of how the tyres wear on these vehicles & what adjustment options there are.
• I've been out of the trade too long (not sure if this is a good or bad thing)

The tech worked out what was wrong with the alignment before he'd even started the machine up ("You've probably got too much -ve camber on the rear & too much toe-out on the front"). I was surprised as my tyres have always worn evenly but he was right as my fronts do have a bit of inside wear if you have a really close look.
He was pretty right - I didn't write down the figures but the rear had -2 degrees camber each side - can't remember the toe reading & the thrust line was off to the left which explains the slight drift to the left that I had (I put it down to road camber). So he made the wheels a bit more vertical & sorted out the toe & thrust line.
Cambers were 0.9L & 0.75R which I was happy with. Toe out was around 2.5mm. IIRC he set it on zero.
Price was quoted as "From $119 for a 4-wheel alignment but it will cost more if there are lots of adjustments" & the final bill was $119, so I assume extra cost is for moving the front chassis, etc. It took him about 30mins to do the job.

Car feels much the same as before. Steers straight with a slight drift down the camber of the road - before & after I could take my hands off the steering wheel when trundling along the M5.

I still can't fathom why I get such good (even) tyre wear - the original CSC2 got over 40,000km & hit the wear bars evenly; the 2nd hand Khumos wore evenly from 4mm down to 2mm in 10,000km without edge wear & the Michelin Primacy I fitted at 55,000km are down to 4mm at 103,500km & would pass muster to 95% of people that looked at them.

Anyway, I'm a happy chappy at this point & would recomend them.

[BottomScratcher]

brad,
Thanks for the detailed feedback. I'm booked in to Spinning Wheels next week, so your comments are both timely, and much appreciated.

[BottomScratcher]

Went to Spinning Wheels yesterday, and came away a satisfied customer. I was first up for the day, so had time for a friendly chat with the tech before he got it up on the hoist. The current wear pattern, reasons for it, driving conditions, tyre pressures, and a range of other things were discussed before the car even went into the shop, so I was pretty happy with that.

As suspected the front left wearing faster than the front right is due to our LH side driving and road camber. I had a little too much front toe in, and a little too much rear negative camber. Nothing drastic, but enough to warrant correction. It was also suggested to run the back tyre pressures to spec (220 kpi/32 psi), but to run the fronts a bit higher. Front unladen spec is 210 kpi/30 psi , and it was recommended to run them at 250 kpi/36 psi. This should help prevent wear on the shoulders of the front tyres due to weight transfer during tight cornering. Particularly on the front left in situations such as on roundabouts. I'll give it a go. For me it's not all about maximizing tyre wear, comfort and noise are considerations as well.

I consider that my car is relatively new in that it has had one service ex-factory, and is still under more than half of its warranty. For those of us that stick with stock suspension I suppose there isn't a great deal of thought goes into steering geometry until either the tyres start to feather, or simply need replacing due to fair wear and tear. Given the cost of a set of tyres I'd suggest that anyone who has just forked out a largeish amount of cash on a new car do themselves a favour after about 2-3K kms, and spend a few bucks more on a precision wheel alignment to make sure you get the most out of your expensive to replace rubber. My CSC2's have 24K on them, and excepting the outer shoulder wear on one of them I expect to get a fair amount more out of them after the alignment.

For those close enough to Sydney I would recommend Spinning Wheels as a professional outfit that do good work at a sensible price.

[Antiplastix]

It seems every vRS is coming from the factory with too much -ve rear camber. It would be a wise choice to get it inspected even on a brand new car. As for you blokes getting more than 30,000 km from tyres. Have nt you worked out what that pedal on the right does yet?

[kamold]

I've never understood how you can wear tyres out in under 30k...
I sold my mildly tuned A3 TFSI Quattro with ~60k on it from new, with the original tyres on it (Michelin Pilot Sport) with plenty of tread.
Hammering it to the next red light like a taxi just doesn't do it for me. Get out on the open twisty roads and have a go, leave the wear and tear for clapped out Falcons...