Wheel alignment and MOT

It depends what was off. There was one item they couldn’t do.

BMW charged £240 I think. Was a few years back now.
 
Busterboo said:
ori said:
I once made the mistake of asking quik fit to do a wheel alignment. They came back to me saying they can all bar 1 of the adjustments which is main dealer only. The offered to do what they could and charge me for it. I said what’s the point as I will have to pay BMW to do it anyway and they kept trying to convince me! Eventually he understood that there is no point paying twice and I will just go to BMW.
Click to expand...
Kwik Fit have done wheel alignment on my cars, using Hunter equipment, for more than a decade. I keep the printouts and check the wear on the tyres regularly. Since I do quite a lot of quick driving, I'm also sensitive to the feel of tyre/wheel/steering performance.

During this time, Kwik Fit's work has been very good. It may be, of course, that the branch I use does this work well and others don't, but I doubt that, because big organisations like Kwik Fit tend to provide a systematised product.

I also take advantage of the scheme they have of alignment contracts: 'pay once and have 'free' alignments for two years'. This means £120 and up to 8 alignments. Living under the local fascist regime of The People's Democratic Socialist Paradise of Leicester, where 'car' and 'driver' are very dirty words and road maintenance is done only for cyclists, wheel re-alignment for cars is often necessary.

As for "main dealer only" adjustment, this is a mystery. BMW do an annual 100-item+ inspection with video report on my 35iS, including measurement at 3 points across each tyre, and have never mentioned an adjustment that only they can, should or want to make. They have commented, however, on how even the tyre wear is.
Click to expand...

We have this on my wife’s 116, and I’ve had it in the past but they only charge us £99 and said we should go every month, no mention of a limit.

I, like you have always found my local kwik fit very good so might just go to them and get it done, although would be good to get a 2nd opinion/ price from another reputable garage.
 
ori said:
It depends what was off. There was one item they couldn’t do.

BMW charged £240 I think. Was a few years back now.
Click to expand...

They have mentioned in the past that there is one thing that is set at the factory and can’t be altered but I have no ide what.

Did it make much difference?

With the roads here (I’m sure every stretch of road I use has big holes...the whole top surface of road missing with vertical edges) I prefer the kwik fit option to pay and have multiple realignments as mentioned above.
 
Make sure you check the printouts though. My rear tyres had worn unevenly, so got the alignment adjusted at KF when they fitted the tyres. Got all the way home before I read the report. The Hunter machine was selected to an E89, completely the wrong model. I phoned them up and they sorted it straight away with no issues. But worth a double check when you get a printout from them.
 
i think the problem is you can get a cheap alignment, that just does the toe, or a full alignment that does the toe and the camber (and you can get really cheap alignments where only one front wheel is adjusted to make the right angle to the other one, rather than both wheels adjusted around straight ahead)

i dont have experience of the e89, but on the E46, E85 and E90, the rear camber is adjustable with an eccentric bolt, and the front camber can be adjusted slightly by utilising the slotted holes on the front suspension uprights. These adjustments are often missed by do-it-all garages.
 
ihadablackdog said:
Haha, I just like to see all the red boxes go green!!!

What is thrust and caster? Is it those?
Click to expand...

thrust angle is the net effect of the two toe angles... so if the left wheel is toeing out by 5 degrees, and the right wheel is toeing out by 3 degrees, the thrust angle (ie the direction the vehicle actually moves) will be 1 degree to the left. i think it applies to driven wheels only...

caster is something to do with the steering angle... difficult to explain in words, so heres a picture. It cannot normally be adjusted during an alignment, its set at the factory normally.

wheels5.jpg

heres some light reading, if you're at al interested :lol:

https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/CAMBER_CASTOR_TOE.html
 
ihadablackdog said:
ori said:
It depends what was off. There was one item they couldn’t do.

BMW charged £240 I think. Was a few years back now.
Click to expand...

They have mentioned in the past that there is one thing that is set at the factory and can’t be altered but I have no ide what.

Did it make much difference?

With the roads here (I’m sure every stretch of road I use has big holes...the whole top surface of road missing with vertical edges) I prefer the kwik fit option to pay and have multiple realignments as mentioned above.
Click to expand...

The car drove better, but my thinking was if I’m paying £130 and still know that it isn’t 100% right it would annoy the hell out of me. So I went BMW and had it sorted properly. What was interesting is the readings BMW had were very different to quick fit.
 
My concern though with paying “once” is that driving over the trillian potholes each day (ok, not a trillian, that is a conservative number) can put it out again, and I’d want to get it checked often (obviously, got to get the thing fixed first!).

I wonder what equipment bmw use, I thought the Hunter system was highly rated so I don’t know why the readings would be different.
 
On the note of alignment... the dealership is claiming that I need to have it done through them because there is an electronic component to it wtih these cars and having a generic shop take care of it could make it worse or do nothing at all. Any truth to that? Do we need their insanely expensive ($300) alignment?
 
BadgerDog said:
On the note of alignment... the dealership is claiming that I need to have it done through them because there is an electronic component to it wtih these cars and having a generic shop take care of it could make it worse or do nothing at all. Any truth to that? Do we need their insanely expensive ($300) alignment?
Click to expand...

They are referring to the steering angle sensor which MAY be affected if you have some serious twiddling with the steering components..

This refers .. https://www.youcanic.com/guide/calibrate-bmw-steering-angle-sensor

When I had mine done (following upgrading my steering linkages /other bushes to E90 M3 versions) it required two visits to get everything spot on. To be fair, the first garage I went to wouldn't change the rear bushes as they didn't have the right tool, so the garage that could do the 4 wheel alignment did the rear bushes and a second re-alignment once they were fitted.

2021-03-13-0011.jpg

2021-03-13-0013.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom