Alignment Question

[Schrup]

I am wondering how long my alignment & corner balance will last. I plan to do about 6 track & 8 autocross events , & about 7k hard street miles a year. I want to get my moneys worth before I tear the suspension apart again. I'm thinking about 2 years, but thought I'd get a consensus.

[RoninLB]

one giant pot hole and alignment is off.

[Schrup]

I guess I should rephrase my question. How often do you guys get your cars aligned &/or cornerbalanced?

[masraum]

I think a corner balance would be good until you either removed some weight from the car, changed the ride height, or possibly replaced some suspension pieces. Corner balance should last quite a while if your suspension is in good shape.

I would probably get the alignment checked, at least, every other year, if you can afford it every year. It shouldn't change unless you wear something out or bend something, but if you are doing track days it's probably not a bad idea to check. Fortunately the camber and toe is relatively easy to check yourself, so once you have the alignment done you shouldn't have to go back until you want to change something or, like I said, you bend/break something (fingers-crossed that never happens).

[hobieboy]

I am with Steve - if you are serious about track events & value "let's be 200% sure the car is ok" before going to the track, I would at least have it check once a year.

Once its properly aligned & corned balanced, I don't think the settings will change unless something drastic happened. So the check should not be too $$$

[Elombard]

Right - easy to do a quick check of the toe and camber in your garage, Usually if the toe gets out much it steers funny. 90% of the people I used to see coming in for alignments had worn out parts. Which are almost always diagnosable by jacking up the car and pushing and pulling on the wheels. You should do this any way before track events to make sure the wheel bearings are tight, no slop in the tie rods, if you dont you wont pass tech and you have wasted your money.