BMW club had a tech session today at Eastside Bavarian. They had this sweet alignment machine -- measured everything optically. An incredible setup (I guess the equipment cost them on the order of $35K). They only do BMWs, though.

So I really should get my alignment done this spring. Where is a good local place to take the S2K? Someplace where I can tell them "I want it set up like so" as opposed to some tire shop where they just want to set it up for low tire wear using a machine that is not repeatable to less than a whole degree and don't bother to weight the springs.

-Mike

 

Hmm, no responses.

In the meantime Eastside Bavarian responded and said they would do an alignment on my S2K after all. It costs $150 to get on their machine, though!

So for those of you who track your cars and pay attention to your alignment, how do you do it? Do you adjust it yourself? Seems like it would be easy except how do you measure it?

Or do you take it somewhere? If so, where? How often?

They are doing road construction near my house, and I'd hate to fork out $150(!) and then three days later hit a new pothole and be out of alignment again....

I'm guessing it is actually more important for the alignment to be consistant than for it to be any particular special set of values.

(It is a really cool machine they have there, though. I hear the Dilbertesque siren call of technology drawing me in....)

-Mike

 

$150 is an absurd rate for an alignment. $70-90 is reasonable. Everybody uses the same equipment so the only thing you are paying for is "expertise." On the subject of expertise: In general, we've only had success with two alignment shops. Go to either Fordahl Motorsports in Bellevue (you will need an appointment) or Omni in Totem Lake. A quick search on either business name will return contact information. Both Fordahl and Omni cater to the racer crowd so they are accustomed to odd alignment requests.

 

It's a BMW shop. They are used to paying absurd rates for many things.

Thanks for the suggestions, Jerry.

-Mike

 

150 bucks will get you lifetime alingmenst at firstone. you can change your alingment everyweek if you want to

 

I like Speedware Motorsports in Redmond for alignments. I think someone had a problem with them once though...

- Michael

 

I've got over 50,000 miles and never had an alignment yet. I think I need to hit the back roads and beat 'er up a little more.

 

Omni is a very good shop and they charge me about $110. They can add weight to the car when they do the aligment if you request.

 

And why would I want weight added to the car?

 

Because unless the car drives itself, it's going to have 175 lbs. of dead weight in the driver's seat whenever it's on the road. If you align it without that weight, then the alignment's going to change from the specs you requested when you sit in the car.

Steve