Are you a busy tyre shop who's revenue depends on high volume alignment ? Or are you a workshop who carries out alignment as an extra service ? Or maybe you do a few tyres over the weekend and want to do quick 'toe and go' for customers ? Well, there are so many different types of aligners and tracking machines available today it's hard to know where to start !
You can buy a basic laser or optical tracking machine that is made by Sealey. This is really only useful for tracking your front wheels to equalise the front toe. It doesn't take into consideration the position of your back wheels so you could end up with a car pulling because of this. You can buy a more advanced type laser aligner from for example Accu-Track (formerly Balco) which also equalises front toe but will track the front to the back so provided everything else is ok, the car will drive in a straight line. This unit will also do rear toe but becomes a little bit time consuming because you have to swap the front lasers with the rear hangers. It will also measure caster and camber but again, it's a little bit slow because you need to put the gauge on each wheel individually.
If you use a computerised system, they will all give (at least) the basic primary alignment angles every time - you get front and rear toe, front and rear camber and front caster. They also have extra features for example - Cradle Adjust Program - If you need to adjust camber on a VW you need to move the subframe. EZToe - Ever tried to adjust toe on some of the Audi's where the track rod is up near the top of the wheel ? This program allows you to make front toe adjustments when the wheels are pointing out so you can do the adjustment from outside the lift standing next to the wheel. Computerised aligners also have their own database for pretty much every car on the market so you don't need to look at AutoData books etc. These days, you can get these aligners running Win XP / Vista with Bluetooth communication to the heads from the console. This eliminates the need for cables and makes the shop safer as you don't have the trip hazzard of cables on the floor. You can however buy a cable system that uses an integrated wiring kit so even though it relys on cables for communication, they are all pretty much hidden, routed through the lift and kept up out of the way until they reach the back of the console.
People often say that they don't have the need for computerised and that well be the case. However, consider this scenario. If you use a laser system and are not in the habit of checking lets say camber. If the camber is out whether or not it is adjustable, you customer will be back to you with prematurely worn tyres. If the camber isn't adjustable, you will still get a reading from a computerised system indicating that there is a problem there. If you can see this and relay the info. back to the customer you will save yourself a lot of trouble in the future. You don't want someone coming back in 3 months time with tyres worn from a camber problem, blaming you and looking for a new tyre. You also don't want a situation where the customer goes elsewhere for tyres because he no longer trusts you. And you certainly don't want people bad-mouthing your business.
Another benefit to the computerised system is that again, if the car has a camber problem and there's no adjustment to set it correctly, it could be from worn / damaged parts. If you are able to repair the damage, replace the parts, why not ? It's extra work, extra income and most importantly, you fix the problem 100% first time.
Why not have a look at the aligners we sell ? There's everything from basic laser systems up to the more advanced computerised systems. New in is the Heshbon HA-710 Bluetooth 8 Sensor aligner, click here for more details.
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