Alignment Cost

[Tim Hancock]

Originally posted by Miguel Antonett
Guys, I just had the 930 re-aligned for $150, but it turned out to be a very dissapointed deal. First, the car now pulls to the left. The underbody - right on front of both rear sway bar mounts - got smashed/dent/pushed in with some of the undercoat riped obviously done by jacking the car on the WRONG place - it appears to me that it slipped off the jack and hit something??? Also, one of the rear toe adjustment nuts is now almost round due to the force they applied with the WRONG tool. What would you do?

Exactly why I do all my own work on my cars. Most Midas or Sears type brake/tire/alignment shops do not have a clue how to take the time and care to do alignments on older German cars.

Front toe is easy, but working with the eccentrics adjusters on the rear is usually not something most alignment "gurus" at the chain stores know anything about. This is not to say that there are no good shops out there, but most don't have a clue when it comes to P-cars and their adjustment systems.

[livi]

When (if ever) I manage to install the new turbo tie rods, the toe-in will need a check up.

Donīt wanna sound cheap - but wouldnīt a front wheel alignment suffice ? Basically just checking toe-in ?

[crashmy911]

All Ican tell you is it's not easy to do. Even the front takes along time. Helped the technican do mine and we took five hours and everytime you move something something else changes. My car was really off though. After doing this I don't see how you could do an alignment at home with string.

[ChrisBennet]

I go to a local tire & alignment place (NTW) and have a certain guy I've vetted do my alignments. The way I see it, you can pay a place that really knows Porsches to align it or you can find some guy that aligns cars all day long and sit with him while he aligns your car. I did this a couple of times until I was satisfied that he cared. (Then tip him well.)
-Chris

[crashmy911]

I tipped him well, he broke a sweat and was worried it would take him all day. So I put on some gloves and went out there to help him. Thank god the shop is a bunch of motor heads. they didn't mind and I had to show him where all the adjusters where located and everything went fine. Also becasue I was right there looking at what he was getting I could see how close he could actually get to what I wanted. To do an alginment on these cars it takes atleast two people working on it. Could also have had to do with me replacing all the rubbers and that things where way off!