[snowwy66]

You drove over one of those toe in/tire depth measuring machines. Developed about two blocks from my shop, they are talking dealerships into installing them (buying them) on the write up isle so incoming service customers must drive over it.

They say the machine turns alignments into a easy sell with a 80% take rate.
Trouble is, every car has a different toe spec and the machine has no way to determine type or brand so it is set up with a average acceptable toe range.
Not very scientific but highly effective at selling unneeded service and adding to the bottom line.

Rob

I didn't drive over the machine. And vehicle info can be entered in to machine. This machine also does braking performance.

Regardless. When I aligned cars. I adjusted for slightly negative toe. So at 70 mph. Toe would be traveling at 0 or slightly positive. Specs came in mostly camber and caster. Most didn't come with toe.

This may be useless information for most of you. It's highly valuable information to me. I like maximizing my tires. I like knowing where my tires are angled. I like knowing how the brakes are performing.

That machine makes it very easy to show and explain to the customer. Because. Customers have no idea how to read and interpret the old day printouts.

BTW. The dealer didn't try to sell me anything. That printout was just handed to me with my receipt.

That machine is also used for safety inspections. The state allowed the use of that machine as a braking performance. At all the express shops that only do safety and emissions. They have nothing to gain in selling repairs. They don't perform repairs.