Did you ever think Touchless Wheel Alignment was possible?

I have been selling alignment equipment for my entire adult life. At different points in my life I was in a position to sell many firsts like an aligner that was noted to be the first Color graphics aligner, also the first color graphics wheel balancer, the first aligner to reference the rear axle, the first aligner to incorporate the CCD technology, the first company to reference the HUB during the alignment process and the German manufacturers changed the design of their wheels to incorporate this technology making it possible to skip run-out and now many wheel alignment manufacturers use this "industry first" clamp for Mercedes and BMW as they added the five additional holes in the wheel to accommodate this clamp, and now the same company with all of those preceding firsts and 119 years of history has spent the last 15+ years developing the Touchless Wheel Aligner. Who is this leader with all of these industry firsts that everybody copies? Beissbarth.. (pronounced bice-barth) a German company started by the Beissbarth Brothers 119 years ago. They also have other firsts like the distinction of the first License Plate, the first Drivers License and of course the first traffic ticket in history. They also built the first Mercedes chassis... "the Mercedes Knight", which was named after Daimler's daughter "Mercedes".

In 2006 Beissbarth introduced the first Touchless Aligner using 16 camera's a CCD reference system and 1200 LEDs. This Touchless was able to read Camber / Caster and Toe in a few seconds but was limited to those angles and had some issues with American wheels. They were purchased by Bosch and a major re-introduction of the Touchless would happen a few years later by adding MEMs technology and removing the CCD camera's and now in the US the first Hubwerks T-16 by Beissbarth has been Launched as of May 7th in Discovery Bay, CA.

The HUBWERKS T-16 by Beissbarth is another leap in Touchless Technology by using 16,000 known coordinates of laser dots. The T-16 is able to project and blanket the tire with a target of 4,000 lasers dots per wheel using a type of diffuser designed specifically for the Touchless giving the T-16 instant and repeatable accurate readings.

This technology makes clamping to the wheel a historical point of laughter, "Remember the days we used to have to clamp metal claws to the wheels and then do some kind of roll back procedure?" As many of you know the clamp has mounting errors, scratch potential, drop potential, potential fender damage when in tight bays and these are all bottom line costs. I have one Dealership group that said they had 2.4 million dollars in "Internal" damage, lot boy wrecking a car, scratches in paint while on the lot, but the number that slapped me in the head was $880,000 in wheel and tire damage from scratches... EVERY YEAR! He didn't want the T-16 for the 20 second quick check without touching the wheels it provides, no, he wanted it for the ability to reduce his pain in wheel and tire damage on a yearly bases. The question is "How much of the $880k was alignment related?" His best guess was about $300,000. Wow... a little change in my thought process began.(duh) Not only are we giving a 20 second quick check on all of the cars on the lot by anybody in the dealership with very little training, we can also prevent costly repairs by wheel clamps that claim to be "Tire Clamps" or "Zero Run-out Clamps", because they are still clamps, clamps break, they require some kind of management from a responsible party, and most of the time the responsible party has left the building.

I visited a couple facilities that have had a Touchless for several years and have completed more than 20,000 alignments each with no service calls and no come backs due to steering wheels etc. as the Touchless is 16,000 lasers accurate.

The Hubwerks team with Gary Palmer, Managing Director of Beissbarth and Danilo Nava the Global OEM Manager, Roberto Rossi, VP of Beissbarth is not pictured but an integral reason Hubwerks is in this picture

As you can see in this picture during the setup of the T-16 it has a small footprint and can be adapted to almost any rack allowing you do do alignments and get readings at any height and short bays are a non issue.

The MS670 Center Post Leverless Tire changer and MT869 ADTP are other leading edge Beissbarth products not seen to the left of the car we now carry them also. We have several demonstrations set up and cant wait to do one for you.

Here Gary is talking at the product launch to a room that has over 500 years of Automotive experience with the Hubwerks 2020 2-Camera Imaging Aligner in the foreground it has a 32" monitor and Romess WiFi enabled steering wheel device embedded and yes and "Industry First", included are "Industry first roll back procedures and industry first Caster Sweeps with an incredibly simple scan of a QR code and any cell phone or tablet becomes a remote.

My final thought in this article is a simple thought on the up in coming vehicle calibrations on ADAR, radar avoidance detection radar, lane departure radar... When Volkswagen put this on their vehicles they didn't contract just any manufacturer to make the Target

Radar Calibration Screen

Manufactured by Beissbarth used by ALL Wheel Alignment Manufacturers

How about all of the Targets below? Who did the OEM's ask to manufacture their RADAR calibration targets? Was it the company they buy virtually all of their alignment products from? No.. Was it the company they buy all of their hand tools from? No.. How about the company they buy most of their lifts from? No, they went to Munich, Germany because they didn't want the popular manufacturer they wanted an accurate one, they ALL chose Beissbarth as the manufacturer

Do you think you want to be on our team? Are you a sales rep or perhaps a distributor? Give me a call and lets talk.

925-727-2555 ask for Dan

We can be found at www.DHSalesLLC.com, www.Hubwerks.Net or www.Beissbarth.com