Gold25000

I have the above mentioned vehicle. and want to get the alignment done. In tue honesty, the dealer is asking $250/-. I have 18"rims and have recently replaced the rear tires. I have also replaced all four coil springs on the car. The shop where I bought the tires haven't got the specs. for alignment. They are charging me half the price for alignment since I bought the tires from them. Could somebody help me in getting the specs for alignment.

Serndipity

http://www.marcusfitzhugh.com/CLK/DIY/align.html

Threes ago I bought a set of 4 Michelin Primacy MXV4 for $519 which included:

Balancing, new value stems, lifetime flat repair, lifetime rotation and a free wheel alignment.

The shop had a state of the art computerized alignment system and when they were done, provided a before and after printout, which showed in color (e.g. red for out of specification and green for within specification).

This was done at 69,000 miles and the cars first alignment, so the initial before values were mostly red.

The printout was specific for the 98-03 W208 and included the minimum and maximum values for each adjustment, which were in agreement with the values in the above link.

The printout also included two other values for both the front and rear.

Front: Total toe (specification was 0.23 to 0.57 degrees) and Steer Ahead (specification was -0.05 to 0.05 degrees).

Rear: Total toe (specification was 0.30 to 0.80 degrees) and Thrust Angle (specification was -0.25 to 0.25 degrees).

!5,000 miles later, the tread wear has been minimal and very even on all 4 tires.

BTW, each adjustable setting (e.g. camber, caster, toe) had a tiny thumbnail drawing showing what the adjustment controlled.

There were also thumbnails for the Total Toe (seems to be the algebraic sum of the left and right wheels of each axle), the Thrust Angle is the angler difference between between the front and rear axle center lines, but can't really tell, from the diagram, what Steer Ahead indicates.