It seems that I am due for an alignment. to drive straight down the road i need to apply about 5 degrees of wheel turn to the right. I went to the local "alignment specialists" and they were not able to do the job right. They said that needed a special tool that only the dealer has. They said they could try, something about grinding bolts, I decided that it sounded more like "alignment amatuers....at least on MINIS

So the question is....For those of you that have had an alignment done. Did you go to the dealer? Or local shop?

 

I went to a local shop for my alignment as have several other MINI owners I know. Sounds a little weird to me that an alignment shop wouldn't be able to do it.

 

Local shop.

But I live in Southern California where it's crawling with MINIs.

 

I went to a local shop after trying 2 different Big Os and a couple of other chain type places that couldn't do a MINI. Look for a place that has the word "alignment" in the name.

 

they will have better equipment, better skills, and will talk to you about what you want the car to handle like, and bias the settings to get you where you want to be. They can also do a much better job of reading your tread wear, will give you suggestions about how to change your tire pressure settings, and educate you about tire and alignment issues so not only will you get a better alignment, but you'll be a more knowledgable consumer as well.

Check with your local Mini clubs, and stay away from the cheap chains.

The dealer will charge high end prices, and do low end work.

The chains will charge low end prices and do low end work.

The performance specialists will charge higher prices, but give you a much better alignment experience.

Matt

 

I wonder if the shop referred to in the first post realizes that you have to remove the front and rear bumper covers to properly align the car. That's what our local MINI service dept does. It takes an 15 extra minutes.

 

That is a nice tidbit of knowledge.

The place I went to was an alignment specialist. They are a local owned and operated buisness. But my dealings have not inspired confidince. The guy even brought me out the photos they had in thier database showing how to make the adjustments citing the "special tool needed" But I am torn to let them do the work or the dealer. Why would a dealer do low end work?

 

My dad's garage aligned mine with no special tools beyond their normal alignment tools and a pointed prybar to set the rear toe.

We didn't need to remove the front and rear bumper covers, just the black plastic chin spoiler, so that the strings from the front heads didn't catch, but I think that that is very equipment specific (others may not hit at all while some could be a real problem).

In short I wouldn't go anywhere that starts off telling you they can't do it. And I would also agree with the previous poster that if they don't talk to you about how you drive the car and / or go for a ride with you to see the exact issue I would keep looking.

After replacing the springs, and rear control arms we had mine right on in 2 tries. The first drive the car followed the road a little too much for my taste so they tweaked it (staying just barely within the specs) and I love it. My dad's alignment guy is very good and he had me setup the heads and do all the swings but still, all told, I think it took less than 45 minutes.

 

I would add that that depends entirely upon the quality of the mechanics at the dealer. I had alighnment problems and the first MINI dealer basically "gave up". The second MINI dealer brought in the regional rep and sorted it out ...

 

We tried getting Goodyear to do an alignment when they installed our tires. They called back and said that they couldn't do it and required special tools. We ended up having it done at the dealership. I'm going to try a performance shop next time but finding one might be a challenge.

 

I had an alignment done by a performance shop. They had a precise digital alignment rig. I don't know if they had any special Mini tools but they specialize in Minis. My steering wheel was straight but there was strange behavior like wandering, imprecise steering, the wheel fighting me during turn in. Each wheel was slightly off. The steering quirks weren't huge but enought to be bothering. Just a degree off in any direction makes a big difference. The improvement in grip and turn in was really noticable.

 

that isn't done under warrantee. I've never had a dealer ask me if I drive mostly with just me or with passengers, or if the roads I drive on have heavy crowns, or if I want to bias the car for quicker turn in, or less toe for better top end.
I've never had a dealer check to see if the tires I'm running have different side wall stifnesses, nor offered to take that into account when mounting and balancing, to get the net pull on the steering to a minimal force.
I've never had a dealer give me the option to have the eccentricity in the wheel and tire mounted such that they cancle to minimize the required amount of weights to balance the wheel.
I've never had a dealer ask me if I wanted clip on or stick on weights, or if I wanted them to hide the weights behind the spokes (better for show, but takes more weights to get the balance right).

I guess that once you've gone to a good performance tire/wheel/alignment place, you just can't go back to "normal" and be happy.

But to be fair, 99.9% of the drivers on the road wouldn't notice, nor even care about the difference.

Matt

 

Jeez....Im ready to drive to california to get an alignment.

 

But I'm sure there are performance alignment shops in Kansas too! Just let your fingers to the walking!

And be ready to pay. 4 wheel alignment at my fav shop is $240. It's about $120 at the crappy places..... Don't know what a dealer charges.

Matt

 

Dealer is also about $120. (1 hour of labor)

 

Dealer service can vary.

We are lucky here in Portland that the techs are very good, as is the service manager. She is a racer, and loves cars. Plus she's a consummate professional and will have her dept go above and beyond the call of duty. Ditto on warranty work integrated with mods.

Ditto for the Parts manager. Great guy.

A far different experience than many other dealer service departments I have dealt with.

With regard to the bumpers coming off, I imagine its shop specific depending on the tools they have. For the MINI dealer here (Rasmussen MINI), it must be fastest to just take 'em off. It's easy and does the trick.



With regard to cost, yes the dealer labor rate is higher than many smaller shops with less overhead, but so long as I get what I pay for, I'm OK with it.

 

I've never heard this before. I wonder why this is so. Do you know?
I had my car aligned many times and the bumper covers were never an issue.

 

Reads like too much toe-out to me; wandering and disconnect steering feel in a striaght line with improved turn-in is a classic toe out trait. Both tires are point at vectors that do not cancel one another out in a striaght line causing each wheel's torque to want to deviat from the car's center line.

Removing bumper covers??? Digital alignment machines do require bumper removal. I've had mine done three times already. $85.00 for a four wheel alignment.

 

There's your problem, meb! You didn't pay enough for your alignment, so it was done wrong (and with the bumpers attached!) I paid $90 for mine, with bumpers, and certainly got ripped off. I'm hoping to find a place locally that will charge more like the $240 I should be paying.
OK, enough sarcasm. I think the whole price paid for alignment thing reflects service and geographic variations. As an economist I am pretty happy with the "law of one price" so long as everything is the same--which of course it never is in the real world!
The real problem is one of asymetric information: you the consumer have very little; the alignment shop, the supplier, has quite a lot including information about their own expertise. That's why word of mouth and experience plays such a big role in finding the alignment shop that can give you good value for money, and an alignment you are happy with.

cheers,
phil