Wheel alignments. Never has there been such anguish in my car world surrounding a technical topic as with wheel alignments and how to do them “at home”. Strings, tape measures, levels, gadgets, do-dad’s, fads, etc etc. Check the aftermarket for all the gadgets you can buy. Nearly infinite.

Never has there been such a technology gap between the professional whole-bay devouring laser powered machines you’ve seen at the dealers and auto shops and the home guy with a couple of sticks, a dirty string and a tape measure trying to get his toe-in vaguely correct.

Well, I may have discovered a truly better way to do this. Read on.

Well, it should be no surprise really, but we are all (well most of us) carrying a little device that is more spatially aware than we ever dreamed. The humble iPhone has considerable power to know where it in space, what is level and what is plumb, which way is north and how far away you are from the sales at Best Buy…. Built in apps already expose those powers. Check out Level and Measure.

I’m not going to go to great lengths to describe what I found, I’m just going to leave a web link here to an company that has developed an app and some simple hardware that I think is incredibly good at what it does. Read their story and see what you think. It’s called:

Gyraline

https://gyraline.com/products/the-case

It consists of a little flat 3D printed plate that you mount your iPhone into. The plate has nubbins that let you place it against your wheel’s rim lip in a dependable way so you can align your phone to the rim correctly. Fire up the app, place the phone in a few key spots, push buttons, BOOM. Out spits your alignment.

I will say I have their version 1, been using it for about a year, and that it works. I can get a toe in and camber measurement in literally 1 minute. All four wheels. Yeah……

I’ve compared it to “Real” alignments and it’s very very close. I just had my Mazda cx70 done at the dealership and I plan on comparing it to what they said as well.

Anyway, read, study, you decide. The thing is not cheap, they know what they have. They are challenging the big guys with their marketing materials.

No more string for me…..

Edited 17 hours ago17 hr by zKars

For the 'G2' android version, the Black Friday sale price (15% discount) is US$340 (plus shipping, tax, etc). Lots of videos on You Tube, by both the manufacturer and users.

This little device may have a lot of auto shop owners scratching their heads about the investments they've made in their alignment systems.

The gyro capabilities of smartphones, coupled with their communications capabilities, are being exploited in a lot of different fields. One example is medical, where smartphones are being used, on behalf of seniors living alone, to intelligently detect and assess falls in the home and then communicate such events to family or caregivers.

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by Namerow

I've got an app that shows real-time speed, google maps I think? Anyhow changing from 14" to 15" with the right speedometer cog it proved my cog choice was right. It might be 1 or 2 mph off but that's better than 10 when the troopers are everywhere making that money.

4 hours ago, Namerow said:

The gyro capabilities of smartphones, coupled with their communications capabilities, are being exploited in a lot of different fields. One example is medical, where smartphones are being used, on behalf of seniors living alone, to intelligently detect and assess falls in the home and then communicate such events to family or caregivers.

Do the seniors have to keep those phones on them?