greg928GTS

What's an average cost of a 4 wheel alignment? What have some of you paid for an alignment?


I have a 93 GTS.

dr bob

Greg-

$85 a couple years ago in the L.A. market.

Richard S

$96 at Sears, with 6 month warranty. Make sure they have the proper alignment rack, take the workshop manual specifications with you. Be the first car there in the morning and discuss the details with the tech. Shouldn't be a problem if they understand what you want and the importance of not un-weighting the suspension. I took mine to Sears early in the morning with the race seat and roll-bar bolted in. The guys were happy to work on it, and understood that I needed a correct alignment for the Pony Express Open Road Race the next week. Everything felt fine, averaged 130mph with top speed of 155mph at the Pony. Keep in mind that you have to have the ride height set to where you want it before you go and have a full tank of gas.

Rich

RyanPerrella

actually,

Ideally you should be sitting in the car and the tank should be half full while they are doing the work

Bill Ball

If you can find an $85 alignment, like dr. bob did, that is able to get the aligment on the money without raising the car beforehand and you end up with the rack centered and the steering wheel straight, make sure you come back to tell us about it. It can happen, but it is rare. Nine times out of 10 they won't have the rack centering bolt, they will insist on raising the car off the wheels to check the suspension and steering components for play and to calibrate the alignment heads, and they will be satified with results that are just barely within the range rather than dead-on. Three months later your front tires will be worn out on the inside from toe-out. I have found that to get the alignment right takes a minimum of 2 hours of back and forth on the settings since they all interact, if you are shooting for dead-on the numbers. Dead-on can be hard to achieve on an older car with old bushings that have settled with age. I've talked to so many shops that say they can do a 928 only to find they were completely ignorant about the car and how it should be aligned. A few have reported decent luck with Sears, which has the latest Hunter alignment racks, getting the techs to agree to not raise the car, etc. But even then getting a good result is a gamble. Keep asking/looking until you find someone who has a good reputation for 928 alignments specifically.

RyanPerrella

Yeah this is definately one of those things where "Your mileage may vary"

Jim M.

Or for the price of one GOOD alignment you can purchase all the necessary tools and equipment to do-it-yourself. Earl Gilstrom has an excellent write-up on it. The DFW group has been doing our own for over two years now with about 7 cars done so far and all have even tire wear. Once you understand the principles it's really easy.

Jim Mayzurk
93 GTS 5-spd

VehiGAZ

Dan Jacobs charged me like $300 (3 hrs) last month for his "928 special alignment". They fixed everything but my caster.

I wouldn't take my ex-wife's car (if I had an ex-wife) to Sears.

Rob Edwards

$95 at the Sears in Santa Ana, CA. Hunter DSP-400, I was the first one there on a Tuesday morning, watched the guy the whole time. The car was never lifted, I watched him input the settings into machine, and saw him adjust until everything was 'in the green'. 2500 miles and no problems.

I wouldn't take my car to Sears for anything else, though.....

hacker-pschorr

If your mechanic has the right equipment, raising the car is not an issue.

In fact, even if you have a "no lift" alignment rack, many times they have to raise the front tires off the ground just enough to rotate them in order to attach the alignment equipment to the wheel.

My mechanic has been doing alignments on 928's since his first one in 1980 and many of his own personal 928's. He lifts the car off the ground every single time. It works because he follows the WSM on how to settle the suspension on the slignment eqiupment & he has the correct equipment.

The "pull down" procedure is on page 44-2 & 44-2a of the WSM. I would feel better with a shop that follows this method who understands why this must be done.

Joe '87 S4

I paid $100 to a shop when I first got the car and knew nothing about it - lots of tire noise and I'm sure the car was lifted. Two months later I paid around $250 to have it realigned at DEVEK. 23,000 miles on my tires with even wear all the way around and just now I'm getting down to the wear marks. Make sure it's done correctly.

Herman K

What brand?

Charley B

$78 @ Charles Schwab in Tracy, Ca. They were very knowlegable, understood the no lift concept and spent a long time on both an '88 and a '93 to get them right. Like Bill says, there seems to be a lot of going back over your other adjustment points as changes are made. Only complaint; they didn't have the centering bolt but said they were getting one.

V-Fib

$96.00 @ Sears. The guy took his time, let me watch, and did a damn fine job IMHO.

jon928se

$65 AUD (Thats about $50USD) - took 1.5 hours - the young guy doing it was over the moon to have something out of the ordinary to work on. If I hadn't told him that he'ld got it in spec he'ld have worked all day trying to get it down to the last thou.