4 Wheel Suspension Alignment & Corner Weighting Service

Northampton Motorsport can offer a complete range of suspension alignment services from basic measurement and adjustment to corner weighting and suspension tuning.

Although Suspension dynamics and how they affect vehicle handling and performance is a subject often covered in enthusiast’s magazines, in reality this is a specialist subject and even the sharpest person would need considerable training and some expensive equipment to get the best from their cars suspension.

Most of us have a basic understanding of what makes a car handle and assume that if everything is bolted up properly then all should be OK.

Unfortunately, this is not so!

Even new cars are delivered from the factory with alignment problems.  These problems are supposed to be picked up by the dealers with the PDI (Pre-Delivery Inspection), but the reality is that wheel alignment is time consuming so they often don't bother.  If your car has been involved in an accident, there is a good chance your wheel alignment is now incorrect.  If the steering wheel used to be central, but now it's not, something is bent!  Speed bumps, bad road surfaces and general wear and tear on suspension components are another cause of gradual loss of correct alignment.  This is often less apparent because YOU are gradually compensating for it. 

Badly adjusted suspension can cause:

• Accelerated tyre wear
• Increased fuel consumption
• Poor stability at motorway speeds
• Steering pull
• Drift under acceleration and braking (often in opposite directions)
• Loss of grip/control during emergency braking and manoeuvring

Finally, if you have just fitted that new fully adjustable suspension ready for next season, do you really think a Mk 1 eye ball and a tape measure are going to get the best out of it?

How does it work?

Before any measurements and adjustments can be made the car must be on a level surface with even tyre pressures.  If the floor is not completely flat this will give inaccurate corner weight information and will also affect the wheel alignment readings.  The surface of our alignment bay has been accurately tiled and is within 1mm across the whole of its surface. This means we can place the vehicle stands to accommodate different wheelbase and track dimensions with complete confidence that the car is level. 

Our Hunter system uses infrared CCD technology to accurately measure in three dimensions the position of each wheel and the angle at which it sits on the road.  To do this, first the car is raised on our scissor lift to allow a clamp and measuring head to be fitted to each wheel.  Once fitted these measuring heads communicate with each other and the computer, and generates a theoretical square box around the car.  Each wheel then goes through a run out measuring process.  This takes into account any slight distortions or buckle in each wheel.  Once this is done the computer adjusts for any distortion automatically.  Obviously if a wheel is very badly buckled this would need sorting before we could continue with the alignment.

Once the run out is taken care of the car is lowered onto four stands, each with a radius plate on.  These plates allow the suspension to settle naturally and the steering to turn without any abnormal loads.  The cars brakes are locked on at this point and radius plates have safety stops so the car cannot move off the stands.  Once all the measurements have been taken, any adjustments can then be made with the suspension in its loaded state.