Next week I'll get four Dunlop SP Sport 3D's 245/40/18's installed on my stock rims (sport model) at a Town Fair tire that I've gone to for tires for the last 8 years. They offer a free front end alignment. I told them that I wasn't sure I could trust them with the alignment, and they said they do one or two bimmers a day, and their alignment guy is very experienced. They said to make sure the gas tank was completely full so that the weight distribution would be correct. I paused, then told them to go ahead and do it.

Lately I've read that because I have active steering I should only let the dealer do it. I don't currently have a problem with my alignment that I know of, but it was offered to me for free with purchase of the tires.

So what do you think? What is it about the active steering that would give a tire shop trouble with my alignment?

Thanks,

 

I've been wondering the same thing myself. All I can say is you should be getting a 4 wheel alignment, not just the front.

Maybe I don't understand the intricacies of active steering, but isn't it just that - steering, but with intelligent variable drive? I can't imagine that would affect the alignment details.

- EDIT -

I found this link that explains how AS works.

http://www.usautoparts.net/bmw/technology/afs.htm

As far as I can tell, AS is part of the steering column mechanism. I don't see how that would make a vehicle alignment any different.

 

With Active Steering, there are things that need to be reset via the equipment that BMW shops have. Just because the tire shop does a bunch of BMW's every day doesn't mean they all have AS.

If I were you, I'd leave the alignment and AS stuff to the dealer...

RA__Adjustment_for_active_front_steering2.pdf

 

as a side note... if the dealer screws anything up its easier to go back and claim with the dealer to get things back to normal than outside shops.

 

From the doc Rudy provided, it states AS must be reset:

after the battery has been disconnected...

Uh, are you kidding me?

Any idea what this reset actually does?

 

There's a couple different reset procedures. One can be done by the user and one has to be done by the dealer. Also, the car will re-initialize the AS itself if power is lost -- my car does it pretty much every day now due to an issue that I'm having where the car doesn't go to sleep properly.

Take a look at some of these posts:
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=10461
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=31820
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=12497
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=39790

 

No don't do it with them. It's gonna really really mess up your alignment even more. 90% of these shops either don't know how to do AS alignment or the program to do it. Ever single person who has done an alignment outside ended up going to dealer cuz the alignment just got so screwed up.

 

Since the only reason I considered having the alignment was because it was a freebie, It now makes sense to say thanks, but no thanks. I'm not having a problem right now, why ask for one?

Thanks again to everyone who replied! This is a great forum.