Alignment

[Maddog]

I called today to book an time to get a front alignment on my car. I told them I wanted it aligned as per my specs. He said they charge $89 for an alignment but that only includes caster & toe. If I want to adjust my camber, it's $85/hour. Is this normal procedure for shops to only do caster/toe for a front alignment?

[Tashko]

It'd be fairly impressive actually since most cars don't have caster adjustment. I don't know of any that do.

Most just charge extra for "custom" alignment.

[holliko]

I called today to book an time to get a front alignment on my car. I told them I wanted it aligned as per my specs. He said they charge $89 for an alignment but that only includes caster & toe. If I want to adjust my camber, it's $85/hour. Is this normal procedure for shops to only do caster/toe for a front alignment?

Call Scott at Can-Alignment... The best alignment shop (knowledge/service) in Canada as far as I'm concerned. I may be bias on this but others here have had excellent results.... 905 878 8060 located in Milton....

[J.C.]

Call Scott at Can-Alignment... The best alignment shop (knowledge/service) in Canada as far as I'm concerned. I may be bias on this but others here have had excellent results.... 905 878 8060 located in Milton....

[Slowpoke]

Scott did my corner balancing last year... I learned a lot from him. If I recall correctly, he doesn't charge very much for alignment.

Many strut-based cars have camber adjustment via eccentric bolts on the front, or you can buy the bolts to make them adjustable. To adjust caster, you're looking at some custom grinding of the holes, or plates.

My guess is, the person answering the phone doesn't know the difference between camber and caster and said the wrong one.

[andrew1984]

Call Scott at Can-Alignment... The best alignment shop (knowledge/service) in Canada as far as I'm concerned. I may be bias on this but others here have had excellent results.... 905 878 8060 located in Milton....

[Keith-02Accord]

I've used Scott for my front alignment on the van and four wheel alignment on the Civic. Unbelievable attention to detail.

I will most likely be using him to corner balance and alignment once I put my new coilovers on this spring. He quoted me $350 for that. Is that about right?

[Stan944]

I don't know your car, but if it has eccentric bolts for the camber, it's rather easy to adjust, and measure it. The camber is the angle between the plane of the wheel and the vertical line (I'm sure you knew it..). So if the car is leveled, you can use a vertical level to measure this angle, or a weight on a string, and do some simple trigonometry.
Caster is harder to measure, and might not be adjustable on your car anyway.
Then you need to do the toe. Although easy to change, it's hard to measure accurately, and if you're not up to the task, you can have it done cheap in most shops. Even Canadian Tire can do it, although the car usually ends up with some other problem after a visit to CT...
Have fun.

[Marsh]

Scott did my corner balancing last year... I learned a lot from him. If I recall correctly, he doesn't charge very much for alignment.

Many strut-based cars have camber adjustment via eccentric bolts on the front, or you can buy the bolts to make them adjustable. To adjust caster, you're looking at some custom grinding of the holes, or plates.

My guess is, the person answering the phone doesn't know the difference between camber and caster and said the wrong one.

Actually most cars I've seen have adjustable caster. Although on some cars it's pricy. On the Prelude SH you adjust caster by SWAPPING radius rods of different lengths (available from Honda), but on the base model it's two nuts.

[Greg F]

...but on the base model it's two nuts.

Damn, that's a steep price to pay! :eek:

[Clutch]

Would the hourly rate be for adjusting camber plates? I would expect plates to take more time as compared to camber bolts.

[cmstrilchuk]

Damn, that's a steep price to pay! :eek:

Yeah, but you're set for life ;)

[Gen1GT]

I'm getting an alignment soon also. What is a good starting point for a FWD autocross car? (in regards to alignment specs?)

[njansenv]

I've had tremendous results with -1.5 or more camber on my daily driven Neon. Best bang for the buck mod IMHO. Different results for different cars, but I wouldn't hesitate to run -1.8 to -2.5 on mine. I've never experienced any kind of shoulder wear, as long as toe was around 0. I prefer 0deg in the rear, but again, different cars....

Nathan