GTI mk5 require a wheel alignment?

[brad]

Hi all,

My lovely car is due for a 30,000km service soon, I remember well before this my old car (Holden Astra) was in serious need of a wheel alignment (was pulling to the left).

However, I don't notice this in my GTI this far (no uneven wearing of the tyres) which begs the question if you can/need to do a wheel alignment and if Volkswagen service can do this for you.

If it drives straight, the steering wheel is straight, the tyres are wearing evenly with no feathering, sawtoothing or edge wear then don't let anyone touch it as they will feel compelled to change something to justify their price & they will probably bugger it.

Just get an X-rotation (unless you have directional tyres) done at every service (or even every 7500km if you can) and you'll be fine.

My U13 went 7 years/120,000km with only 1 wheel alignment & that was because it needed a new lower control arm (previous owner ran it into something & bent it).
The Liberty was 3 years/40,000km & only because I replaced all the dampers.
The Golf was a different story - shocking edge wear on the fronts & bad handling because the previous owner had it aligned with positive camber.

At last estimate I've done about 10,000 wheel alignments when I was on the tools.

edit: thread narco.

For Sydney people - Heasemans are good on most cars but I'm not sure how they cope with Golfs. Wholesale Suspension in Penrith also have a good reputation.

[gikku]

if Volkswagen service can do this for you.

They prolly just whip it down the road to Goodyear/Payless/Jax/BobJ.... and add a 50% markup.


yes the GTI needs attention;