Mongo

After washing and waxing the 928 today I notice that I have abnormal tire wear on the outer wall on the right rear of my car. The left rear has inner wear. Definitely a big loss in camber and a major handicap to handling. I'm curious as to know what's the price for a 4-wheel alignment for these cars since this will be my first time taking it in for one.

Andy

Thaddeus

I'd be interested in findingout also, since I understand aligning these cars is quite a special venture..

Ben Allison

Posting this link for the benefit of any new owners lurking and reading this thread:

Don't take your 928 to any old place to get it aligned. It has a very unusual alignment procedure as it takes about 100 miles of driving to "settle".

http://members.rennlist.com/captearlg/928align.html

bd0nalds0n

People rave about the Hunter alignment machines with the DSP 400 paddles that allow the car to be aligned without being lifted.

I emailed the guy from Hunter and he suggested that Hoehn Porsche, in Carlsbad, had the particular setup I wanted. However, the price I was quoted was, get this, $330. Yikes.

I ended up going to Clarence Brown, in Clairemont. I went through the whole agita with them about measuring the ride height in advance, and cranking down the front in order to get it back to the original height. The first time, they screwed up and I was supposed to go back and have the car re-aligned after it had settled. I ended up driving about 1750 miles before I was able to get back--one of which was the SOCAL928 Mid-Cali ramble which was 300 very hard miles. The toe was way out, and I roached a set of tires which were probably about halfway done to begin with.

Anyway, they did both alignments for free, and mounted/balanced my new tires for half price. I figured I about broke even on the deal.

The new tires seem to be wearing okay, and I'll keep an eye on it. I think a 4 wheel alignment at Clarence Brown would run you about $100. But if you had the dough, consider Hoehn.

Nicole

I have seen prices from $90 per axle to $300 for both, but believe that the Porsche dealers are likely to charge more than that.

What I keep hearing more and more is that the rubber bushings of the upper arms on our cars get worn out and therefore the alignment might not stay consistent under all driving conditions, or you might reach the end of adjustability when trying to align the car.

In any case, it is definitely a good idea to have the alignment done by someone who knows the 928 and the tricks of dealing with it.

Mongo

holy crap, its a lot cheaper than i thought. Except for that $300 one. I know a guy named Jae that runs a place called Mirage Intl. in San Diego. He's reasonably priced and charged me $150 to set my alignment and install tie rods too on my 944. I wonder if he'll take the task on trying to realign a 928..

It's interesting how some bad bushings can even completely throw the car off balance. It kinda reminds of how Ferrari 308s need literally everything on the front suspension replaced at 40,000 miles.

Thanks Nicole and everyone for the tips and being great rennlisters!


Andy

Nicole

Yes, it almost seems like a Ferrari needs a complete rebuild at every major service...

Best of luck!

Jim_H

WOW!!
I just got my Shark aligned on a Hunter 400.....$50. A lot of us locals here use the guy and he is great. A Romanian guy that LOVES Porsches. Didn't know us Portlanders had such a deal going.

tlee

North Coast Alignment in Solana Beach, approx $110, perfect!
Use Hunter machine and do not lift the car. FYI, Jae at Mirage had my front end so out of alignment after replacing front ball joint carriers, that they claimed they had never seen a car farther out of alignment. Wore out 2 front tires in 10 days.
Use Hunter machine, go to Solana Beach, be happy!

borland

There's no way of telling if the alignment machine is in calibration, or if the technician uses the equipment properly. Only way to be sure is to do it yourself.

I used the DIY techniques in the above link to do my 4 wheel alignment. Very easy, simple low cost tools, time consuming but fun too.

jon928se

Before you pay for a proper alignment, especially if you know your 928 definitely needs an alignment doing. It is worthwhile removing and cleaning all the adjusters to be certain that the alignment shop doesn't waste lots of your money struggling to adjust seized adjusters.

I got this advice from the alignment shop in the UK that I used. They quoted me approx £150 GBP for an alignmnent assuming it would take about 5 hours but then said If all the adjusters work smoothly it could be done in about 1-1.5 hours. It took them about 1 hour in the end because everthing was easy to adjust. This was from a strating point of random reassembly of the adjusters- so alignment was all over the place.

Machine used was a John Beam

Jon
Black SE

Steve J.

I got my alignment at NTB on the Hunter DSP400 for $89. It would have been $79 but the 928 is considered a "difficult alignment". After 25K miles the tires are wearing evenly.

928Quest

Porsche dealer in Scottsdale charged me $195. They even told me to be sure I had a full tank of gas so that when they adjusted ride height and alighnment things would be right. Happy so far.

Chuck

Ron_H

It seems to me that weight should be placed in the driver's seat to be accurate. That's how Devek does it. Just a thought.

WallyP

Alignment is one thing, ride height adjustment is something else! It is possible that the cheaper alignments are just alignment, while the expensive ones may be including ride height adjustment.

The ride height should be correct before you get the car aligned...