How much for an alignment?

[gabenheimer]

I'm in the process of lowering my '88 carrera and upgrading to the turbo tie-rods. How much will an alignment and corner balance cost?

Randy

[HarryD]

Depends who does it. A high quality race prep shop did mine. Charged me for 7 hours. It is worth every penny.

[Nine9six]

I'd say around $350'ish for an align and corner balance by a reputable shop.
7hrs. @ $90 per hr. is a little steep in my book.

[HarryD]

Originally posted by Nine9six
I'd say around $350'ish for an align and corner balance by a reputable shop.
7hrs. @ $90 per hr. is a little steep in my book.

The time included some other work/help so it is a bit hard to say what I was charged for just a align/corner balance. I spent quite a bit of time with him prior to this work to ensure I had all the right bits purchased and installed and that stuff was "free".

[gabenheimer]

Thanks, I was thinking around $300 - $400. We only have two Porsche shops in town that are capable of this type of alignment. Both are good, I guess I'll pick the one with the lowest cost.

.....Now I just need to finish the lowering job!

[Elombard]

Yah its a long process to do the full alignment and CB on one of these. Look at the bright side most cars you cannot even do a CB and rear camber adjustment.

[S2GART]

Pardon my ignorance, what's a corner balance?

[stevierayvaughn]

Corner-balancing, in simple terms, is adjusting the car so there's an equal amount of weight on all four tires.
To do it, you need four scales (one for each tire--there are scales made specifically for this).
Early Porsches used torsion-bars instead of coil springspre-964, and the front torsion bars had little adjusters you could turn to change the ride height of the front of the car. You could change it at the back, too, though that was a little bit more work (but not a lot). There's a lot of info on this board on corner balancing and alignment. Just try a simple search for the finite details!

[Quicksilver]

Had mine aligned and corner balanced in August by Steve Alercon at Johnson Alignments. As usual he did a perfect job customized to my specs...

Steve- "What are you doing with this car?"
Me- "Driven daily as if I stole it, and a bunch of Auto-X. I am only conserned about how hard it will corner."
Steve- "We really should go a little conservitive so the tires will live."
Me- "The tires are good for less then 5000 miles anyway and they are mostly scrubbed off."
Steve- "Ok, if your really sure... Max camber front and rear..."

$250 and it is perfect.

[Quicksilver]

Originally posted by S2GART
Pardon my ignorance, what's a corner balance?

The ride height on each corner of these cars is completely adjustable so if you just lower the car it may be level but the weight at each corner probably won't be even.

Imagine if the suspension in the front right corner and left rear corner are pressing down harder. The front left corner and right rear corners could be quite a bit lighter but you won't be able to see a difference.

The car will corner harder in a left hand turn. In a right hand corner it will fall over on the front corner.

It needs a corner balance. They put the car on the scale and make sure that each end of the car has equal weight on the left and right side. The rear can be quite tricky.

[Nine9six]

Had mine aligned and corner balanced in August by Steve Alercon at Johnson Alignments. As usual he did a perfect job customized to my specs...
I understand Steve is the man to see in the So. Cal area. His prices are extremely reasonable, and he's good at what he does.