I had a mishap in my car last week and badly kerbed front and rear passenger side wheels........to the extent all my geo is out of line. Called in my local Kwik fit this avo to see about them tracking it on their Hunter Hawkeye system. Hopefully they'll squeeze me in tomorrow and I'll feedback after that......but......whilst I was there I asked on price.
Free check, £50 for any adjustment on the front axle and £25 per adjustment on any rear wheel. He then told me they do a deal, whereby I pay an extra £20 on the final bill and the check and adjustments are warrantied for 2 years. Within that 2 year period you can have as many checks as you want and you're allowed 8 adjustments free of charge within that timescale.
Well worth it if you ask me and I shall be spending the extra £20 me thinks when I get it done :thumbs:
Centre Gravity changed things last year and charged £100 for a full suspension and geo check on their January clinic ( refunded if you had any work done with them within 3 months ) as it used to be free.
Still worth the £100 though :grin:
No such thing as a free lunch................although I will be bringing Chocolate Digestives to Oulton Park ( plain chocolate of course )
Yeah, just make sure the adjustment they make isn't just within tolerance, but as close as possible to right, as each wheel could be within tolerance but we'll out to each other
Also worthwhile being sure each adjustment point is free and not seized. Rear coffin and track arms seize for fun.
First off this deal pretty much undercuts every Porsche garage .
The hunter system ..
Whilst not wishing to be rude to any Halfords / quick fit mechanics .. its designed for idiots .
I personelly have a high reguard for ANY mechanic where ever he works , and there are actually some dam fine mechanics working at these places so skill is not an issue imho .
Car on ramp , attatch wheels markers .. enter vehicle details then move the car forward .
You now have the readings for the geo .. its that simple .. do they know what to adjust though .. yup .. theres a walk through section on how and what to adjust with pictures .
You basically adjust one corner at a time untill it moves from the red to the green .
Job done .
Downsides ..
This will set the car to factory settings and more often than not something will be siezed , im guessing thats where they make their money from , replaceing the siezed components so they can adjust it .
For kilimatic toe then i think i would advise a Porsche garage although in all honesty they should be able to do it .
You dont need to be an expert on geometry to use this system .. it tells you what to do .
I work on Porsche and have for many years .. with this i could adjust the geo on ANY make of car or van with out knowing diddly about the vehicle.
Also unlike some other systems this cant be cheated .. some systems you can move the laser then hit print .. all green on the print out , not in reality
Great deal, BUT our local Kwk Fit has guys who are basically tyre fitters with some sketchy mechanical knowledge, made a complete arse of my old mam's Audi brakes and sent her out in the car with brakes which were dangerous, I had to tell them how to bleed them correctly, Shocking :cop:
I'll write a proper update on this when I get chance, but in the mean time:
I spent 2 hours there today getting the geo done. I did some of it myself, with the help of the lad doing it and to be fair, he was a decent lad who seemed to know his onions when setting the geo, but was limited on basic principles of undoing seized bolts/nuts (where I had to step in).
We 'improved' the set points of each wheel, but they weren't where their ideal place should be. Probably down to worn (rubber) components and 18 years of creep + only so much adjustment on the cam bolts.
Personally, I'm not confident that the Hunter Hawkeye system is that good as I witnessed too much fluctuation in the system readings that weren't a cause of any movement of car parts that were beyond what I would class as a 'measuring' system accurate enough to achieve the manufacturer's tolerance band on each measure.
I bet I could drive round the block and have the geo rechecked and some of the readings would be greater than 'within tolerance'. I can imagine the repeatabilty of this measuring system not being acceptable for its purpose :dont know:
I'll most likely go and have it checked again (for free) in a month or so after I've carefully monitored any uneven tyre wear.