Wheel alignment and tire replacement at dealer's?
 

Would you go to your dealer for a 4-wheel alignment and tire replacement (I'm putting Vredesteins on) or would you rather go to your mechanic who is not necessarily BMW-certified but probably worked on quite a few of them?

I'm trying to decide of the cost difference is worth the "risk". I don't think there is any actual risk involved. This is more of a figure of speech. I think it is a human factor any way you look at it. Dealer's mechanic may make a mistake just like a 3-rd party mechanic and I will be chewing through the tires at much hire pace than I really want...

Please share your thoughts.

If I had a choice, I would pick my best local tire joint or Indie specialist that
does all the PCar,MB, BMW hot set up wheel & tire work...

Surprised by the need for an alignment on your nearly new car; my '01
has never had one and has not needed one...I thought the roads in
Dallas were better than the potholed east coast, lol!
GL,mD

You can have tires mounted at a good tire shop with a road force machine to balance the wheels. As far as alignment, I would stick with the dealer. They have
to load the car with sand bags to align it is what my dealer told me.

Craig

I always get tires installed and balanced at a shop that uses the latest spec Hunter equipment and go to the dealer for subsequent alignment.

Read post # 7.
http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...n-braking.html

I'd do it at a dealer. Yes it will cost more, but then you can stick it to them if there are issues - until they fix it.

that's my mentality too... they charged me $149 (was $179) for the alignment. As you may know my last visit wasn't pleasant when they damaged my fender... but again they're fully responsible.

I feel like if an independent shop scratches/dents your car or services aren't done right the first time, they'll try and weasel out of it. At any rate, I don't care what they think of me at an indy shop anymore for something like swapping tires... I'm going to stare at them while they do the work... no more careless crap with my car. Nobody gives a crap about it but you, unfortunately.

Ok, I'm convinced now. X5 is not the type of a vehicle one should cheap away on :)

I'll set up an appointment with my SA to have new tires installed and alignment done.

Not sure I understand how 2 out of 4 responses "convinced" you...

I agree with X5Meister: if the dlr doesn't have a quality Hunter
RoadForce machine or similar, that someone there is very familiar with,
I wouldn't go near the dlr. Of the 3 dlrs I am familiar with, none
have one; two do it half-azzed, in-house, while the 3rd sends tire
work out, except for the quick Biff&BuffBrigade tire mounting.

I would still find the best tire mount joint...as for the alignment,
I would probably use the dlr, though a new set of tires would
not lead me to diagnose that I "must" an alignment, unless the
tire wear showed out of alignment symptoms. Imo, an alignment
is not like going to the chiropractor, but it's your ride.
GL,mD

mD,

I was inclined to go to the dealer to begin with. That is why it did not take much to tip me over this way.

The cost difference is $92. Dealer asks $132 for tire installation and balancing, plus, $160 for alignment. The 3rd-party shop asks $200 for the whole procedure. $92 is a 30% difference but it is probably worth the added convenience (all in one place, loaner) and sense of confidence (if something goes wrong they have all necessary resources to make it straight).

I think what MD and I have said is that wherever you go make sure they used the Hunter setup, which not every dealer has, even if the cost is higher IMO it's worth it.

X5Meister,

I agree with both, you and mD. I want to get best results. For my own good, I will research if any of the shops I'm familiar with have the Hunter equipment you are referring too. Human factor still remains a major unknown but I would expect dealer's techs to have better competence than an average mechanic shop. But it is just the matter of probability.

This morning I've heard the story about the shop I was considering going to and it turned me away completely. I was told by a person I tend to trust that he was offered a ride in a tuned Carrera 4S that was in the shop. I doubt the owner authorized that. I don't want my X5 to be used for test-drive purposes.

I went to a Hunter balancer shop and they failed to even see that my left rear tire was spinning out of round. The BMW tech put it up and spun all 4 tires... you can visually see it spinning out of round from a side view... it juts forward easily. How can a Hunter machine not detect this and even go so far as to try and balance it? Can added weights cause this or is it DEFINITELY a tire defect? I know the obvious answer is the operator had no idea what they were doing but this was just so obvious on the car, why not obvious on the Hunter balancer?

Ok. My main point about using the full Hunter setup is that their latest spec equipment, as used by BMW, has the capability of mounting/dismounting tires without any metal parts coming in contact with the rim thus to a great deal preventing any damage.

Here is a little older unit that I believe was the first of it's kind, and immediately adopted by BMW.

all_hunter_tire_machine

You can see the latest ones on the hunter website. Check my link as posted before.

That shouldn't happen. In my link I listed some places that have the latest and greatest Hunter setup. Try one of those.

I think the difference is that we need to compare quality local mechanics and tire shops and the dealer. Generally, most dealers are pretty good, which you should expect. But a quality local tech or tire shop can easily be better. It's just finding those quality local shops, preferably those that deal with BMW, is difficult.

A shop or dealer that has the Hunter is a bare minimum for a quality shop, IMHO.

My experience has been that a shop who is diligent enough that have sprung for the latest and greatest Hunter setup is a quality shop and they generally do good work. Just takes a phone call. Also mom and pop places seem to work better as well.

Well, I went to the dealer to have the tires replaced and the alignment done.

I received the following report along with the rest of paperwork:
Picasa Web Albums - evolvah

How bad do these angles in red look like? The vehicle pulls to the right slightly. I think I should raise it with my SA, shouldn't I?


Thanks!