Best Value Alignment Machine?

[Tom]

Daniel, while there are certain products, tools, equipment where you can often spend much less money and get close to the same thing, I have not found that yet with aligners. We have had a number of systems over the years and what you get, at least to me, seems to be pretty much proportional to what you spend. 

Three things you can do here is look at the alignment demos page

https://www.automotivemanagementnetwork.com/tools/wheel-aligner-demos/

Look at the wheel and tire equipment directory

https://www.automotivemanagementnetwork.com/tools/shop-owner-resource-directory/#Tire-and-Wheel-Equipment

And search the word alignment in the forums

If you are considering brands on the high end, there are several to consider – make sure you demo them all. We turned the evaluation over to our techs and let them chose the one they wanted. I figure if they like it, they are far more inclined to use it.

[mspecperformance]

Hunter is hands down the only choice i would go with. It is fast, efficent and will increase your productivity. I have used camera systems in the past and they are much more cumbersome and take longer to set up and break down.

[rods2105]

Doesnt hunter use cameras also??  I believe so.  Most do now. 

I have had the John Beam one for ten yrs now…..just now needing some work. 

[mspecperformance]

Doesnt hunter use cameras also??  I believe so.  Most do now. 

I have had the John Beam one for ten yrs now…..just now needing some work. 

The hunter hawkeye elite uses targets on the wheels. Atlas and bosch along with the less expensive aligners use cameras at every wheel.

[tdrisdale]

I bought a Snap On camera system once, it lasted about 7 years, it was a lot of trouble and many repairs, BUT mostly I could not give it away. I updated it and bought two cables to the tune of $250 each just so I could sell it. I took a loss when I sold it, I should have just given it away and not fixed it. The Hunter would have retained some real value and been worth some real money. That is something to think about.

[Linc]

Our shop has had a Hoffman for at least 10 years and it has been trouble free and reliable. Don’t remember the pricing difference but there must have been a material difference. We had been using a Hunter for years and had them quote us but Hoffman won out. Since then we cant complain.

[Paul Seeley]

I have the atlas alignment machine , I’ve had it for five years . So far it has been very good. I got the zero runout heads , blue tooth, and I bought the calibration bar. Good support with updates etc. it has good features and is easy to train new people on it.