Hello All. I've been noticing my 2003 HSE pulling pretty noticeably to the right and am going to take it in for an alignment. My local dealer wants to charge me $200 for an alignment while a local reputable shop will charge the more common price of around $50.

Besides the obvious advantage of taking it to the dealer where they have intimate knowledge of my type of car, can anyone tell me any reason I HAVE to take it to the dealer and pay more? Are there any specific technical steps required for a RR that are above and beyond that required to do any other all wheel drive SUV?

I'm definitely not just trying to get off cheap. I just want to know if the $200 price tag is justifiable or if I can feel perfectly comfortable letting my local shop handle it.

 

If after checking your air pressure and tire wear, if it is still pulling then go to an alignment shop, they will most likely do a better job anyway.

 

With any reputable shop you should be fine getting it re-aligned. It's a straightforward operation and there aren't any Rover-specific procedures.

 

The stealerships always overcharge

 

Thanks all! I dropped it off at the local shop this AM to get the alignment fixed. I've really learned a lot in the short time I've owned my RR and been a member in this forum.

I'm taking my Range Rover into the Olympic mountains this weekend for it's baptism. The previous owner was Howard Schultz's wife (the owner of Starbucks) and I have a feeling she never got it dirty. Heck, it only has 35k miles on it.

Thanks again!

 

Thanks all!
I took it into the local Les Schwab where the tech performed the alignment. He called when he was done to let me know that it did in fact need the alignment adjusted however after road testing it still pulled right. He took the initiative and swapped the front tires, it pulled to the left. He swapped them to the rear and all seems well though, long story short, I need tires. They're the original Goodyears that I've since learned are pretty lousy at best. I can't say that I'm going to be heart broken to see them go in the next 5k miles.
I'm really thankful for all the feedback and ideas. I'm glad I took it to Les Schwab to find out for $50 what would've cost me over $200 to learn from the dealer. It's also seems that if you find a reputable shop with a good warranty and the right equipment there are better values for alignment than the dealership.