Hi guys,
Any recommendations for a good/ sensibly priced tracking alignment garage in SW London. Two different guys are wanting to charge me c£150 to do it...which seems a bit of a p*** take. Or should I just invest in the ebay laser kit that's showing up on the "uneven tyre wear" thread?
Thats a piss take! Sounds like they are quoting for all four wheels on an L322 where, notoriously, nothing wants to move. Especially at the back! Even then its top end.
£30 to £50 seems to be fairly typical. Maybe this website is worth a try :- https://bookmygarage.com/blog/wheel-alignment-cost/
Think I'd want to be sure that things are pretty much right before trying the DiY laser kit. All this sort of thing is so much easier when you know what a good one looks like. Small errors will probably be fairly easy to handle and understand but if its got weird issues ...
Clive
I had mine done at the LR dealer in Peterborough. They just charged MUCH less than £150.
I'd try giving them a call to see if your local dealer offers a reasonable price.
I had mine done at a local branch of Formula 1 (but not sure if they are National). They charge £39.99 if they have to adjust anything, or £15 if they just check and find no adjustment is needed.
there's loads of Formula 1s, but unfortunately a bit sparse around SW London. ATS said £60, and it's close, so I may just go with that. How much did the LR dealer charge Rutland?
I can't remember exactly (I had something else done at the same time so the total bill wasn't just for tracking). I just remember it being surprisingly cheap. I want to say £39.99 or £49.99.
They quoted me a higher number (somewhere around £125 I think) but I went with them anyway. I had it done elsewhere but it wasn't right so went to LR to get it done right. Their quote was high but I just considered it the cost of getting it done right.
When I came to pay the cost was much, much lower than their initial quote.
They also said that some of the parts were rusted solid and needed a lot of work to free them up - they don't know how the other place claimed to have done the tracking and then charge me for it. It explained why it didn't feel right after being done elsewhere though - they'd done half a job.
There's this place http://www.rrlondon.co.uk/ I got the Ascot from them as they were selling it on behalf of the owner. It wasn't them that had MoT'd and failed it on numerous non-existent faults and they seemed a decent sort of place (for London anyway).
I had mine done at local garage ( mr uniques ) after I’d replaced steering box, ball joints, droplinks, panhard bushes, drag link and steering bar, took them around an hour and charged me £40,
Took it to ATS - they read the fronts as 0 degrees 5 minutes toe out, tie rod seized so we couldn't tweak the toe. They didn't charge - can't say fairer than that !! The rears are 0 degrees 15 minutes toe out, and I guess those should be parallel, but the rears are unadjustable so.... nothing can be done for that, right?
It's a live axle, the rears should be parallel unless the axle is bent, you've got a really badly buckled wheel (in which case if they rotated it 180 degrees you'd then have 0 degrees 15 minutes toe in) or they didn't seat the measuring kit correctly on the rim. However, if they are showing 15 minutes error on the rear, it doesn't give a lot of confidence in the reading they got at the front. Tie rods usually are seized but not so much that Plus Gas and a big pair of Stilsons won't shift.