How reliable are the Hunters alignment or does anyone on here operate them?

I took a CRV in for a couple of rear tyres and thought I'd get them to check the alignment.

Received the printout and it looked like it was well out with the before and after diagrams. Got in the car and the steering wheel was too far over to the off side and it pulled to the near side. Took it back and once again had a printout saying it was way out Had it done again and although it straightened the steering wheel it still pulled to the left.

Took it back once again and they changed both the front wheels over and it still pulls to the left.

The car drove pretty straight in the first place without any pulling and the steering wheel was spot on. I wanted it checked as my other cars was out and the inside of the tyres were shot.

Are theses device fool proof and it's not the operater screwing it up? I have a print out here for what it's worth showing everything seems to be lighting green and ok. Im back off there again today because as far as I'm concerned it's worse now than what it was to begin with.

 

Only as good as the operator, guy I use has one and it's brilliant

 

its more than likely coming from the rear being out. one its called thrust axis deviation, you think the cars pulling right or left its not its being pushed, thing i have found with wheel alignment shops is they never check steeringcomponents or ball joints for wear, you can make as many tweeks as you like but if components are worn you wont get it right. hope that makes sense.

 

I do all the tracking at my work the thing is with the print out they can make them say what ever they like all it takes for example is if the camber is out all you have to do is put washers in to space it out or if its toeing in or out to much then all you do is push or pull the wheel till it says what you want it to on the pc then press print. if its pulling to one side then its had to much adjusting on one side of the rack. Just to add i dont do the above lol

 

Thanks Gents ...

It does make sense about the rear pushing and other components wearing. They gave me such a cock and bull excuse this morning, so the money is back in my pocket. I've had 6 trips and gave them 4 attempts to fix it.

Would it be worth getting somewhere else to check it to see if they had fucked it up or user error? It felt fine and drove in a straight line before the had a go with it.

 

Which place did you take it to with the hunter setup ?

 

After two more visits it still isn't any better than it originally was
It was Merit tyres in Hook.
They gave me a full refund and couldn't apologise enough which is fair enough.

Surely doing the tracking should be very simple and straight forward?

 

Don't bother. Take it to a Wheels-Inmotion venue and have a Hawk Eye geo set up done

 

I'm on holiday at the mo but if you wanted to run it over to Aldershot I'm sure it can be sorted

 

Thats the biggest problem with wheel alignment is computer based read out, systems like that make it look like there is a problem, and direct the operator to non required adjustments

The person doing the operation 99% of the time knows nothing about geometry on vehicles and the outcome of adjustments.

 

^ Which is exactly why I suggested Wheels-InMotion - who specialise in geo set ups and do know what they are doing

http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk

 

Exactly who i was going to suggest.

Ive been using Tony for a while now.

 

The man knows his Geo!!!

 

Ive had vehicles from up and down the country sent to me from our network for alignment.
It's not as if it's a difficult repair operation, you just have to be able to understand what happens when you adjust 'xyz' to the car.

If you do not know the net result, do not touch the geometry.