mr58

Hello - I'll be replacing my multifunction wheel with the sport wheel (PDK) and I figured it would also be a good time to have an alignment done.

My local Porsche race shop does alignments the old fashioned way (with strings). My local dealer has the state of the art Hunter equipment. My general opinion is that the local shop cares more about their work (and is more competent).

Any thoughts on which is the better way to align the car?

Thanks

drcollie

You don't need an alignment unless your car is out of alignment, plain and simple.

Strings are because they can't afford to buy the Hunter which is about an $ 85,000 machine or so. String alignments are what you do at the race track after you shove your caster plates around for a track setting, no way I'd do a string alignment on my street ride given the choice of using a state of the art Hunter machine.

LexVan

If your tires are wearing evenly skip the alignment. If your car tracks straight skip the alignment. Save the $350 till you need it.

Archimedes

Quick threadjack on a related question. I recently had a local dealer do the X73 sport suspension conversion on my Cayman S. Turns out they don't have an alignment rack so they sent it out to a local place. When I looked at the specs, the rear was way out of the recommend specs, with a lot of negative camber (-1.6 on one side and -1.9 on the other). I couldn't get a clear explanation about why they did that other than 'drive it and let it settle and we'll tweak it', which means the same indy alignment shop will tweak it. This time its going to another dealer that has the Hunter system. Question is, how many miles would you drive before you'd consider it settled?

LexVan

200.

Less than 1000 for sure.

mr58

The car is no longer tracking straight (after a receipt service at the dealer) - it drove perfectly straight before the service. I checked the tire pressure after the service (the pressures were perfect and they did adjust them incorrectly, but I set them back to the correct pressure). They did this to one of my previous cars - bumped the lift with a wheel and caused the car to go out of alignment (on that car it caused wheel damage as well).

With that being said, Hunter alignment at the dealer or string alignment at a talented Porsche Indy/Race Shop?

Thanks for all of your help.

LexVan

^Hunter.

CSK 911 C4S

The dealer alignment fees are pretty reasonable here in Nashville. < $200.

My CPO car was way out wearing the tires pretty bad. Called around and no one I talked to would touch the 991 so dealer was the only option for me. On my 2nd set of tires since alignment and everything is wearing evenly.