4 wheel laser allignment

Hi guys,

Any of you had the above done lately?? Just wondering how much it costs roughly.. Had my hippo for about 15 months now, so never had the 4 wheel tracking done before.. Every car i had before was 2 wheel drive and cost me a tenner to do, so was just wonderin what the hippo will cost.. had a quick scan locally on the web, but cant seem to get a price!

today we done my mates disco2 £30

Cheers Rhodie... cheaer than i was expecting

£30 where you get it done for that sort of money

€ 40 over here .

£70 here they have a gucci new machine to pay for, so i didn't bother

cremator said:

£30 where you get it done for that sort of money

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sts tyres hemel hempstead

£30 is cheap. Paid £150 at the stealer about 6 years ago because I couldn’t find anyone able to do it correctly. I needed all 4 wheels aligned plus the steering geometry set-up. Cutting the story short… from what I understand… When aligning all 4 wheels and starting from scratch, there’s a rear thrust angle to be set-up. I think this is aligning the rear wheels so they work together, and don’t pull the rear to one side, after their own set-up, in layman’s terms. After that you set-up the front wheels with the steering straight, based on the rears.

I think I need it doing again, hence me fishing line question in a previous fred. I’ve been to a number of tyre fitters who have all done what they called a 4 wheel laser alignment. When they say 4 wheel, they mean the 2 wheels at the front only. I’ve been conned by this several times now. They set-up the front 2 wheels based on the jig being connected to the rear wheels and pointing a laser at the front wheels. If the rear wheels are out, then they’re of no use as a datum to set-up the fronts. So they set me front wheels up all wrong. Instantly noticeable and wouldn’t refund me money as it was said to be my fault.

Some varying prices there guys..

Hippo, thanks for the last comment.. Top advice as always. Im guessing i need 4 wheel alignment doing as its 4wd?? I have a steering wheel wobble that gets quite noticable over 30mph, and the jeep is now pulling to the left.. Ive noticed my passenger front tyre is starting to feather around the absolute outside edge, and the drivers front tyre is starting to feather about 1/3 of the way in, about 1/2 inch wide (goodyear eagle NCT5's all round)

Is it worth my while just getting my front tracking done before i muller the tyres?? Noticed lately that coming off the slip road of the M4 on my way home from work (which has quite a bad adverse camber) that the hippo feels a bit floaty?? Is that normal?? Thats what pushed me toward the 4 wheel alignment thing???

How much adjustment does the hippo have? On modern Porsches there are lots of adjustments on the suspension to set them up (£150 if done as part of a service) so the castor, camber, toe in etc can be set to factory or your own settings. Without adjustments how do you do the set up?
The suspension geometry on my Defender only has adjustments for toe in/out on the front wheels, Although I suppose you could stick washers in the rear radius arms to align the axle.

Camber, caster and toe on the Freelander.
Front and back

newcyboots said:

Some varying prices there guys..

Hippo, thanks for the last comment.. Top advice as always. Im guessing i need 4 wheel alignment doing as its 4wd?? I have a steering wheel wobble that gets quite noticable over 30mph, and the jeep is now pulling to the left.. Ive noticed my passenger front tyre is starting to feather around the absolute outside edge, and the drivers front tyre is starting to feather about 1/3 of the way in, about 1/2 inch wide (goodyear eagle NCT5's all round)

Is it worth my while just getting my front tracking done before i muller the tyres?? Noticed lately that coming off the slip road of the M4 on my way home from work (which has quite a bad adverse camber) that the hippo feels a bit floaty?? Is that normal?? Thats what pushed me toward the 4 wheel alignment thing???

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I'm not sure. The best set-up is to have the whole lot done, but there must be garages who will do it cheaper than main dealers. You normally only need the front doing. But I haven't found a garage which can do the rear. Garages tend to call it all sorts. Flash titles such as "4x4 laser trak" and "all track 4x4 laser alignment". The laser bit is the laser mounted on the rear wheel, pointing to a marker plate on the front. Hence I'm thinking the fishing line method to see whats wrong and buying one of these is the way forward. 4x4 bit for rear wheels will be released later this year as an add on I'm told...

Trackace Laser Wheel Alignment Gauge - Tracker - Tracking At Home | eBay

Trackace DIY Laser Wheel Alignment Gauge Car Tracking Save Money Fuel Tyres Tires CO2 Emissions - YouTube

steering wheel wobble is not due to stearing alinment it is due to wheel balance or at worst ball joint mine cost £25 a couple of years ago by national tyres

F1 Autocentre in Lincoln have all the gear but apparently lack the wit to use it. They did my Ford Focus for about £30 and did a damn good job so I let them loose on my the Bus - £80 out of pocket and the steering wheel wasn't centred and she still pulled to the near-side. Took it back and asked them to have another go, which they did free of charge but it's still not right. First chance I get I'm breaking out the ball of twine and doing it myself...

Had mine done a couple of months ago,

I had fitted new bushes, droplinks and wishbones with new ball joints.
Plus 2 new tyres (on the back)

I had it done at ATS - the guy took an hour lining up the rear first, then the front ..all on a connected computer screen.
It was within acceptable tolerances when he put it on the machine
...but after an hour of tinkering and centering my steering he got it bang on.

£70 lighter but it transformed the car .... a very noticeable difference afterwards.

Mark2 said:

Had mine done a couple of months ago,

I had fitted new bushes, droplinks and wishbones with new ball joints.
Plus 2 new tyres (on the back)

I had it done at ATS - the guy took an hour lining up the rear first, then the front ..all on a connected computer screen.
It was within acceptable tolerances when he put it on the machine
...but after an hour of tinkering and centering my steering he got it bang on.

£70 lighter but it transformed the car .... a very noticeable difference afterwards.

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There you go! That's the way it should happen. At a place where Techs are doing this all day One would hope they are wizards with their kit. It sounds like this guy had the skill and patients to do a good job. I hope his Manager notices that.

Not everyone has an ATS or whatever on your doorstep though... I renewed a LH steering ball joint and centred the steering wheel at the weekend ( the local Land Rover agents previously only renewed the RH ball joint instead of both for my PO. On top of that they left the steering way off centre).

No garages open here at weekends so one has to resort to the mark one eyeball and 'feel'! Well how was it done in the old days?

Off to UK this weekend and may bring back a Trackace. They sound like a great piece of kit. Good enough for the fronts at least. Will do the rears too but of course as already mentioned doesn't mean the rears will follow the fronts. I wonder if Trackace can solve that one?

Trackace can only do 2 tyres either front or rear. It only tells you the difference between the 2 tyres it's working on. If you do the front and the steering is out, then you turn the adjuster nuts the same amount to move both wheels in the same direction, then fine adjust with trackace and check again. Hence to move wheel so it steers forward. To get the rear wheels pointing forward (rear thrust angle - which affects front wheel steering quite a bit as I found out on mine) you use trackace to set them up, but also use parallel lines alongside yer FL. Adjust rears against parallel lines and trackace to get them at correct degrees and centered. Will explain betterer when I put up some info about how I did mine. Trackace were going to release a 4 wheel version but I int seen it yet. Not all ATS can do 4 wheel alignment. Mine doesn't. Depends on the kit they have.

Thanks Hippo.

Was wondering if it's possible to use Trackace with lines to do a 4-wheel. Yes I seen a comment that they would bring out a 4-wheel but nothing yet in their site. Mind you the way they invented that piece of kit I wouldn't put it past them to do a 4-wheel too.

I'm trying to get my head around the lines thing, for example what do you use as a datum for the parallel lines?

I can see the theory behind the thrust point etc for the pucca setup, but I'm sure as you say we can adapt it to one axle at a time with the lines. Interesting!

The reason it costs so much at main stealers is, they dont have it pre set up. If you go to a proper tyre place they normally have it all set up on the ramp ready. Drive it on, clamp to the wheels and start adjusting.

At a main stealer they have to get the machine out , set up the turn tables, get all the wiring out. Takes like 2hours.


Better to get it done at a decent tyre place.

Rockhopper3 said:

Thanks Hippo.

Was wondering if it's possible to use Trackace with lines to do a 4-wheel. Yes I seen a comment that they would bring out a 4-wheel but nothing yet in their site. Mind you the way they invented that piece of kit I wouldn't put it past them to do a 4-wheel too.

I'm trying to get my head around the lines thing, for example what do you use as a datum for the parallel lines?

I can see the theory behind the thrust point etc for the pucca setup, but I'm sure as you say we can adapt it to one axle at a time with the lines. Interesting!

Click to expand...

The short answer is:

Measure the distance from the parallel fishing lines, allowing for the rear track to be 11mm wider than the fronts. Now make sure the fishing lines are the same distance apart infront and behind yer Freelander. Now do the wheel distance to fishing line measurements again. Now do the parallel line measurements again. Keep doing this and adjusting to get it perfect. Now set rear wheel degrees with trackace. Now check centre alignment of rear wheels with fishing line. Now measure fishing lines/wheels to slightly adjust fishing line to be perfect again. Repeat rear wheel/fishing line setup until perfect. Now do the same to the fronts. Once setup you need to test drive it to see if steering in central. If not, adjust both sides to move in the same direction, and check with traceace. Simple int it. Will explain betterer when I have the time.

Had my alignment done at main dealer years ago. £150+vat but I was charged £100+vat as they forgot to do it. Reason at the time was service has nothing to do with body repair shop. Hence it didn't get done when asking it to be done at same time as a service. Only repair shop has the alignment as service wouldn't need it. Theirs was a fixed rig laid out and luckily I got copies of the print outs which I copied when doing the above. Big main dealer. Makes a massive difference. Even when I did it myself.