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Car dealers and repair shops of all stripes often recommend a 4-wheel alignment when a customer brings a vehicle for routine service. This happened to an Ioniq 5 owner and member of the Facebook Group called The Ioniq Guy. This is a great group run by a content creator that we have come to respect. Let’s examine what this Ioniq 5 owner posted and then break it down to see if we can resolve this issue.
I went to the Hyundai Dealer today to bring in my Ioniq 5 2024 for service; it has 10,500 miles on it. They said I needed wheel alignment and would charge me $150.00. I refused, saying I would bring it in next time. Does anyone have any comments on this? My car has no tire wear on any side, and does not pull to either side when I drive it. The guy said it when he received the vehicle; no inspection was done on the car, he just told me straight out. That’s when I thought it was suspicious. Am I wrong?
As you can see, this owner has gone through all of the typical causes for an alignment to be done. Let’s list out what was stated:
1) No abnormal tire wear evident after visual inspection.
2) The vehicle does not pull to either side abnormally when driven.
3) The vehicle is relatively new.
The only other symptom we would add to this list of causes for an alignment would be: 4) The steering wheel is centered properly.
Proactive Alignment
Having been a vehicle expert for decades, I’ve never seen any owner’s manual for any model that recommended a proactive alignment as early as 10,500 miles. That seems crazy. Over the vehicle’s lifetime, it could add up to $4,000 in service costs! In addition, there is no Ioniq 5 trim for 2024 that is intended to be used off pavement. Hard off-roading can certainly cause a vehicle to be knocked out of alignment. But normal driving should not, even if one hits a few monster potholes now and then. When I gifted my 2007 Toyota Highlander, it had over 130,000 miles on it, and it had never been aligned. Every set of new tires wore evenly, it didn’t pull, and the steering wheel was spot on center the day I gave it away. Why would a much more expensive, modern vehicle require this costly and seemingly unnecessary service?
Deal Auto-Alignment Checks
To drum up business, and to help their customers keep their cars rolling straight down the road, many vehicle dealers installed automatic alignment checkers that look at cars as they roll into the service area tunnel. It’s a genius ploy to drum up more revenue, excuse us, we mean “help customers.” I have driven past these myself and had the service advisor tell me that my car needed an alignment. However, I had no symptoms, so I passed, and my tires wore evenly until they had lived out their full lifespan.
Let’s examine some skeptical replies from fellow Hyundai Ioniq 5 owners and see what their reaction was to this post:
-DH – “Every stealership on earth the past few years, every time you pull in: ‘Your car needs an alignment.’”
-SR – “Our dealer almost does it automatically after a certain number of kms. Big scam.”
-JP – “Every time my wife takes her Santa Fe in, they say she needs an alignment.”
-DM – “Our former dealer would attach sensors on every visit and then declare that an alignment was necessary. I asked to see the numbers (“which corner is out by how much?”). They kind of stumbled through a “we cannot provide that information” explanation.”
R-A – “Car dealerships are desperate for money.”
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Now let’s see the other side of the argument as explained by some other members of the group:
-MJ – “Potholes and hitting curbs are enough to throw out an alignment, regardless of mileage.”
-JE – “There might not be any wear from it if it was just knocked out of alignment. They should be able to show the results, though.”
More than one owner stated that they thought the Hyundai warranty covered alignments for a year. Torque News pulled up the Hyundai page titled “America’s Best Warranty.” Here’s a screenshot what it says about this type of issue. We’ve added an arrow to make the part we are interested in apparent.
As you can see from our screenshot, the Hyundai warranty says that it includes “Adjustments for 1 year/12,000 miles.” Perhaps this 2024 Ioniq 5 was barely outside of this based on time of purchase, but we would expect any dealer who wanted to retain customers for life would do this work at no charge.
Based on the information presented in this post, our expert credentials, and our background in owning dozens of vehicles, my opinion is that this was likely a money grab and possibly a suggestion posed to most vehicle owners. We’d advise the owner not to do the alignment and to switch service centers. What would your opinion be, and what advice would you offer this owner? Tell us in the comments below.
John Goreham is the Vice President of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on LinkedIn and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John’s by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.
Image of Hyundai dealership by John Goreham. The image is not of the dealership in question as far as we know.
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Source: torquenews.com
