Shop Time for Wheel Alignment

I have a '01 Forester with almost 100K miles. It's never had a wheel alignment, but I just got my second set of new tires installed a few days ago and now I'm noticing a very slight pull to the right. Tire presure is the same all the way around. I scheduled an alignment at a dealer I've done business with before, and they said it would take a minimum of 2 hours. Should an alignment really take 2 hours?

Thanks, Mike

Reply to
Mike
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To do a 4 wheel alignment properly on a 10 year old car, 2 hours is not too far off. It might be done in less, but if they need to move anything that has not been moved in 10 years it can eat up a lot of time in a hurry.

Reply to
clare

I'd agree with that. On a car with no possible rust on it that just had all the parts assembled last week, I woudl expect a 90% solution race alignment in 2 hours, but sometimes breaking loose old rusted together stuff can take time, and solvent, and heat, and big wrenches, and cursing, and miracles.

Reply to
weelliott

Since your tires were installed just before this issue occurred, I would suspect the tires. Try a front to rear swap and note the results. Cheers Grumby

I have a '01 Forester with almost 100K miles. It's never had a wheel alignment, but I just got my second set of new tires installed a few days ago and now I'm noticing a very slight pull to the right. Tire presure is the same all the way around. I scheduled an alignment at a dealer I've done business with before, and they said it would take a minimum of 2 hours. Should an alignment really take 2 hours?

Thanks, Mike

Reply to
Kim W

Mike wrote:

A new tire can be out-of-round which means it can pull. It can also cause shaking but, in my case, it happened only within a narrow speed range (within a few miles per hour around 60 mph) which was noticeable by placing one hand lightly atop the steering wheel.

The out-of-round tire can still appear dynamically balanced on the technician's spin-balance machine. One tech noted that tires that showed okay on a Coats balancer were found out-of-round on a Hunter balancer. His trick was to use white chalk while the car was jacked up and running in low gear so the tires would slowly rotate and watch for a run-out of more than .090. I don't know the specifics but I think the better tire balancing machine uses a force wheel against the tire that actually puts a load on the wheel and tire during spinning to emulate the load of the car on the assembly and reproduce road spinning weight. This can check for bent wheels and out-of-spec tires.

I don't know how much round tolerance is allowed on new tires. I suspect the first response you'll get is "it'll disappear with wear". I had an out-of-round tire and wear didn't resolve the problem. Luckily I had them write up their recommendation at the time so I wouldn't run into a problem later in court if the out-of-round condition had me taking legal action to replace all the new but now slightly worn tires. All tire diameters must be the same with an all-wheel drive Subie. After 2 months and still the pulling problem (and a slight vibration that showed up a few miles per hour around 60mph), they had to replace all 4 tires and all because they didn't want to replace the 1 bad up in the beginning.

Note that my out-of-round problem wasn't because the profile of the tire was a bit egg shaped. The crown wasn't perfect dead center. Out-of-round tires must be replaced as I don't see wear occurring just right to right-round the tire. In fact, from my readings, the symptoms can get worse over time with road wear.

You said you never had an alignment and yet you are at 100K miles. You got new tires but never mentioned if that included an alignment. In fact, you mention this is your 2nd set of new tires which means you never got an alignment when you got the 1st set of replacements. You're deliberately skipping required maintenance or you're buying from an extremely stupid tire shop. One, you're way too long in mileage not to have done an alignment already. Two, when you put on new tires, you MUST get an alignment. The shop should've already told you that unless they were very familiar with you being a super skin flint. Unless you're getting the cheapest tires they have, usually the alignment is included in the price for a 4-tire replacement. Are you really sure that you didn't get an alignment with the 1st and 2nd set of tire replacements? I can't recall every replacing the tires without also getting an alignment. I think the recommendation is every 20-30K miles except I live in a winter/summer seasoned area and the packed ice on the roads bouncing the car around and the spring-time pothole banging usually means I have to align once per year (I only put around 15-18K on the car in a year) about mid-year after there's been some decent pothole repairs done. Yet if you end up skidding on ice, sand, or an emergency turn and end up banging into a curb then it could be time for another alignment and with spin check the banged wheel(s). So what does the car manual tell you for the service interval on alignment?

The 2-hour appointment time is to give them slop for working on cars before yours (could take longer than they expect) or having to do more work (after you authorize it). The 2 hours isn't the time in their shop time book on how much they charge you but rather your sitting time in the customer waiting area. If they end up doing just a front-end alignment then it's probably less than 20 minutes. If the rear end is out of alignment, they'll probably ask you for permission before doing anything and, if you say okay, that's going to take more work than the front end. You always hope they don't have to do any adjustment on the rear and that the current adjustment is within the specs. I don't know much about it but from what I remember they can't really do much on the rear end other than send you to a body shop. If they have to spin the wheels (hopefully on a machine with a force arm to emulate a load) because it's a tire problem rather than alignment that causes the pull then it's probably another 5 minutes per wheel and 5 minutes to remove and replace. Their price is likely fixed: you'll have to find out what different rates they charge depending if its front-end only, all wheels, and if it includes loaded balancing or it that's extra. Although the cost is fixed, they give themself a lot of slop time to fit you in. You could be in and out in under 20 minutes. You might not get out until after 2 hours.

Have you ever gotten to see the doctor at the appointed time, or have you instead been stuck in the waiting room for over half an hour to then get excited to have your name called so you can then sit in an inspection room for over another half an hour? You could be lucky and be the only patient there that day to get in and out immediately. Don't rely on that happening. Sometimes you can ask the shop if they're really busy that day and try to schedule on a light day, or get the first appointment in the morning (i.e., wait until a day when you can be the first in the queue).

Reply to
VanguardLH

The old hunter style (high speed) balancer does a very good job of balancing a tyre on the car - which also balances the drum etc, but takes 3 to 4 times longer to do than the low speed off car balancer. You can check for out of round EASIER on the low speed off-car balancer because you have the "reference bar" built in- used to check rim offset - so you can very easily tell if the tire is out of round or not properly seated on the bead. Weight positioning accuracy is also MUCH better on the low speed off-car balancer. I could balance to within a 1/4 oz, located accurately within about 2 degrees of rotation, first try, in about 10 seconds, on the low speed balancer. On the Hunter it always took ZAT LEAST 2 trys - 15 to 30 seconds each, to get ROUGHLY the same results.

Yes, the Hunter style has a few advantages - particularly on a car with rusted drum brakes - but then the wheel has to be marked so it always goes back on with the same stud in the same hole, and when you rotate the tires you need to rebalance them all.

The off car balancer does a more predictable, repeatable, accurate balance with a whole lot less labour involved.

Reply to
clare

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