Modern day laser rack or old school shop for alignments?

I would LOVE to take my car to a brand new shop with the best, latest, most expensive equipment, run by a young guy with 5 years experience who was crazy about cars and made it his business to understand ALL cars, new and old, and had the specs for every car ever made at his fingertips.

I expect there is such a shop in Heaven. Here on earth, hard to find.

If I have to compromise I would rather have a good man with second rate equipment, than a fool or chiseller with first rate equipment.

 

You want to find an old cranky alignment guy who's seen it all. Usually they are located in old dingy shops. The equipment doesn't matter as he'll know how to use it on your car. Last car I took to my alignment guy he asked if he could let the new kid just out of school give it a go. It was a 60's Mopar with torsion bars. The kid really tried hard, but after an hour gave up and asked for help. It took my guy 1/2 hour and it was perfect. The moral to the story is knowing how to adjust old suspension is most important. The new equipment or fancy pants school you came from isn't.

 

Mr Waters you are absolutely correct.

I never pic anyone to work on my car by what his equipment says, find a guy that knows what he is doing. For an alignment you are best off to find a guy that does alignments, for carbs you should find a guy that does carbs and etc. They will know all the tricks that have to do with whatever it is that they do.

 

modern only means that the person using it dosen't have to know anything. 30 year IBM employee and they fired all of us that knew how to fix things. so they could hire some one for less money and throw parts until they may fix it.

 

I let the old guys do the alignments on my old cars,I had one of my galaxies done by a tire shop with modern equipment and it was ok but I took it to one of the old guys a year later and it was off a little and is much better. I went back to the same tire store with another galaxie before I found the one old guy and they wanted to charge me double and sounded like the tech could not handle a old car so I said to just do the toe in and never again. I just hope there is enough old guys that will still be around for years to come.

 

Here`s a twist to to situation. I installed hydraulics on my car 25 years ago. For the last 10 years I put about 3000 miles on it in a years time. I run Coker Wide Whites. $1ooo a set. I wore out two tires in about A year and a half time. The car has 10 inches of ride height adjustment. Everybody I talked to said you cant aline the thing with A-arms in the front. 3 years ago, the A-arm broke loose at the bottom pivot point. Ordered all new front suspension parts and had them installed by one of my buddies. Took it to the locally owned tire shop here in town with new equipment. Spent 65 bucks and told them to aline it somewhere in the middle(ride height). Where ever it works the best. And don`t change the ride height after your done. Took it home and made a block of wood I drop the car(crossmember) down onto to set the ride height. 2 and half years later, no visible wear on the tires. My question is do you talk to the guy at the front desk or do you get to talk to the guy doing the work. I did not buy the tires from the alinement shop(if that matters). They don`t sell wide whites.