Wheel Alignment Issue

[g10chy]

Guys,

Had two new tyres fitted to the font of my S3 yesterday as the passanger side was wearing fairly bad on the inside yet the drivers side was fine.

I then asked then to re-align the wheels and once they got the lasers on and read what it should be set to (parrallel) off the chart, they said that it we align this according to the chart my tyres will not last!!

Does anyone advise anything as i dont want to screw another drivers side wheel and i also dont want to rip my new tyres apart by having it set up according to the chart??!

Cheers,
Chris

 

[bantam1]

What was the camber setting on the passenger side when measured - is it running excessive -ve camber?

Parallel toe won't cause excessive wear like this. What were the readings they took?

And where was this - do they know what their doing?

 

[reptor245]

Mine does the exact same thing. They put it on a 4 wheel laser alignment. they said i must have a bent shocker. as my car was on its original suspension i thought screw it, but a complete lowering kit and guess what.....its still the same. grrrrrrrr . Ive just learned to live with it.

 

[s3ollie]

ive been to a few places with lasers and they dont even know that anything (other than front toe) is adjustable as they normally only do toe on cars etc... i thinks its a bit of a joke when the customer need to advise the 'gargae' how to do it. Now i have found a decent garage with proper wireless digital kit and they set it how i want. Id make sure that the garage know that there is adjustments there if they dont know.

 

[jojo]

You have to becareful to see if the garage can measure camber aswell and general toe, the S3 has adjusment for camber aswell as toe, to adjust them to parrallel for toe is just a safe setting.

 

[g10chy]

Do you reckon Awesome GTI in manchester will be able to sort it out?

 

[[Dave B]]

I recently had full four wheel alignment from Awesome GTI - I still have negative rear camber at the back, and it's still more visible on the NS. I'll dig out the report thay gave me.

The excuse is that there is minimal adjustment available on the fixed tie bars, but i'm sure mine wasn't like that when I bought it.

 

[g10chy]

Cheers Funky.

 

[metricspaces]

So what's the recommendation or general consensus for getting four wheel alignment done properly on the S3? Where's best to get it done?

Someone advised me to bring it to an Audi dealer - because as mentioned here, independent places won't be aware of the various adjustments that can be made. Involves the subframe, which the majority of independent places won't go near.

Only thing is, a mate from an Audi garage told me I'd be looking at one to two hours labour to get this done. Sound about right?

I'm in two minds. The risk of bringing to an independent is that they f*&k it up and you end up bringing it to the Audi garage anyway. But then again, who want's to spend over 200 + VAT to simply get wheel alignment?

 

[bantam1]

awesome did a good job aligning my S3 recently. Not cheap but good.

 

[bantam1]

So what's the recommendation or general consensus for getting four wheel alignment done properly on the S3? Where's best to get it done?

Someone advised me to bring it to an Audi dealer - because as mentioned here, independent places won't be aware of the various adjustments that can be made. Involves the subframe, which the majority of independent places won't go near.

Only thing is, a mate from an Audi garage told me I'd be looking at one to two hours labour to get this done. Sound about right?

I'm in two minds. The risk of bringing to an independent is that they f*&k it up and you end up bringing it to the Audi garage anyway. But then again, who want's to spend over 200 + VAT to simply get wheel alignment?

I would utterly trust my car FAR MORE with one of the reputable VAG independents for any work including alignment. Both Awesome and APS have done alignments on my S3 and i was highly satisfied with the work.

Audi far more likely to 'f**k' it up IMHO. Alignment not as specific, but not sure why anyone would want to pay dealer prices for people who are most probably totally unfamiliar with these older cars to work on them. Bonkers conkers.

 

[s3ollie]

if you take it to Audi make sure you have done any mods that you intend doing first as you don't want to be doing it to soon again at that price.

Audi use the beissbarth system and i believe it runs a set adjustment program that takes 1-2 hours to complete so i would hope the car would all be spot on and equal each side after.

As said above there is also the sub frame that can be moved to equal camber, Castor and setback. so in the two hours Audi take maybe they are doing this as well.

 

[bantam1]

if you take it to Audi make sure you have done any mods that you intend doing first as you don't want to be doing it to soon again at that price.

Audi use the beissbarth system and i believe it runs a set adjustment program that takes 1-2 hours to complete so i would hope the car would all be spot on and equal each side after.

As said above there is also the sub frame that can be moved to equal camber, Castor and setback. so in the two hours Audi take maybe they are doing this as well.

Set adjustment programme that takes 1-2 hours??? Adjustments are done manually.

This equipment is not only found at Audi. APS have this as do Awesome i think. £200+VAT for alignment=crazy.

 

[s3ollie]

i don't mean the computer does the adjusting... i know its adjusted manually.