Looking for Good front end alignment tools for the home mechanic...

[83hurstguy]

John, Please report back with the results. I see you found Rivals.

I have used every alignment guy within a 1/2 hour drive and it always requires one of two things. Babysitting the alignment guy or arguing with him, some are better than others but I am tired of it.

Share your frustration there. I've used some John Bean machines in the past... the biggest problem with that equipment was that it wasn't setup for custom applications, and was a pain to work with for it. Most techs are just taught to look up "year, make, model", which provides them the settings from the software, then turn wrenches until it all goes green. When we were doing chassis testing at the proving grounds and the machines were giving us fits, the first thing to come back out was the old bubble gauges.

On my car, I found some minor frame damage due to crash damage from a previous owner, brought it in to get frame horn tweaked less than an inch (to align bumper better). Rather than just check the alignment when done, the shop "did me a favor and took most of that caster out of there." Argh!

I'm down to deciding between the smart camber and quick trick alignment tools. There are a few sellers on eBay that sells turn plates for $200, it's nice to have the angle gauge on there for measuring sweep angle while checking caster. Debating if those are worth the $200 as well.