OT question regarding car dealer and service

[hoonjr]

Take it to a dedicated tire shop for the mounting and alignment. They should be able to give you a printout of the alignment specs.

[zap]

edit

Originally Posted by Ralph

Drivability is critical to a new car dealership....so they "tend" to have the latest best, most accurate, and most expensive alignment equipment (and road force tire balancing machines). It's gotta drive like a BMW....right?

Dealerships do have the equipment but mechanics may not follow manufacturers procedures carefully. Plus there is a range in specifications and I like a certain amount of toe in. My Indy understands me.......the mechanics at dealerships roll their eye's.

Best balancing is not done on Road Force machines. The owner of a VW/Audi performance business in Washington state explained it to me years ago but I no longer remember the explanation.

[godfrey1112000]

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[stackie]

My MIL works for Jeep dealership. Service advisors making in excess of $250 k on commissions for services sold in a low COL state.

My local BMW dealership wanted $280 to change a battery and reprogram car for it. Said took 2 hours. My Indy BMW mech qouted $50 in 10 minutes and then refused payment saying just keep bringing it to me.

I think that’s enough info right there.

Jon

[Kingfisher]

OP here, I ended up taking it to Tirerack recommended installer 10 minutes away. It was first come first serve...in and out of there in 30 minutes and they did great job for $130.

[benb]

Find out where the BMW race car guys go for alignment in your area. I'm willing to bet it's not the dealership.

All these things (mount, balance, alignment, rotation) are all things that are marked up ridiculously at dealership.

A tire shop likely has a guy who does alignments all day long.. a good one will be very good. Some of the other tasks like rotation are a total joke, super super easy so it's ridiculous they charge $100+ for it. The extra equipment they have should speed the job up and make it cheap, not make it cost 2-3x more. Just having the lift & air wrenches saves a ton of time on a rotation.

At least one of the shops where I lived that was favored by the racers had a lifetime alignment plan that paid for itself vs the dealership in 2 visits. The car I had at the time was really sharp handling and needed at least 2 alignments a year, you could tell if it was going out very quickly. No brainer, probably saved me $1000+ over the 7 years I had that car.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by Kingfisher

OP here, I ended up taking it to Tirerack recommended installer 10 minutes away. It was first come first serve...in and out of there in 30 minutes and they did great job for $130.

that's great.

the other salient point here, i think - is to decide for yourself when tires are necessary for replacement, as well as when alignment is necessary.

a tire tread depth gauge is cheap and easy to use. at the end of the day it's wasteful to replace tires before they are shot, even if recycled, it costs energy to dispose of the old ones, and that should be put off for as long as safe to do so.

of course the dealer, if he knows he's only going to see you once or twice/year wants you to replace tires when you're in.

with alignment, if you're not wearing tires abnormally and the car tracks straight, etc - you dont need an alignment.