Is there a way to do wheel alignments at home for decent results?

 

depends on how many tools you have and how good you are with a string and tape measure..

for procedure, google it. all kinds of information out there online about doing your alignments.

 

Is there such thing? I thought it was computerized or somthing.

 

Unfortunately it's one of those things that's hard to get perfect yourself, and is too much of a pain it the ***. All an alignment place has to do is put it on the rack and let the computer tell them how to adjust it. Prolly just wanna fork over the cash and pay for someone to do it. Get a one year plan or something from NTB for like 100 bucks. It's worth it to me cause I'm always screwin with the suspension, or hitting one of the millions of potholes around here and needing to get it aligned.

 

The cheapest place I've seen do them is BrakeMasters for like $30.

 

I get mine done every 6months for $45

 

i get mine done at my school for free. thanks to my suspension class.

 

^^That's awesome! I'm guessing college?

 

I haven't had an alignment for well over 110,000 miles and I even changed the struts myself about 40k miles ago.

 

wow. either you got lucky/are really good at alligning, or we sucked at what we were doing, but when we put new springs/struts on my car we just did the best we could to let us get the car down the road to have it alligned by some pro's.

 

some ppl are just too cheap.. ..

 

well its better to just go somewhere pay the extra bit of money and get it right than to do it yourself and end up messin something up or throwing it farther outta line.

 

i get an alignement for $49, you could measure and do it once yourself just to learn. I think it's a good idea to know how, but I'd would rather pay someone because without a drive on lift, it'll be pretty hard especially if your car is lowered

 

I've been told on several occasions that the measurement aligning you can do on your own is worth bunk. From what I've heard, and what I've experienced, you can do all the measurements as precisely as possible, and still wind up with a car that will barely stay on the road.

 

I never needed an alignment for some reason. After installing struts I drove it and the steering wheel stayed centered even at high speeds. Think I am on the second set of tires and there is no cupping or inside or outside wear. I am not cheap because I didn't get it done. Just wasn't needed.

You think I would continue to drive a car and buy new tires if it needed an alignment?

I didn't do any tape measuring or anything when I changed the struts either. I was expecting to get an alignment but everything went back exactly as before. Never needed an alignment for hitting bumps or anything that could cause it to misalign.

Same thing with my Pathfinder now that I think of it. Never had an alignment on it either and it's been about the same miles and changed the shocks about the same time.

 

I looked at a few articles on alignment, and I'm looking to jus pay for it. Would I necessarily need the rears aligned as well or will just the fronts normally do ok?

 

Front only....