At this year’s Global Tire Expo in Las Vegas, Hunter Engineering Company had a range of new products on display.
Its new WinAlign 17, the latest iteration of its award-winning alignment software offers a range of features that serve as the foundation for a new range of products, including its Quick Check Commercial inspection system, enhanced ADASLink as well as its new Collision Alignment System.
The culmination of more than 30 years of research and development, WinAlign offers a raft of benefits for mechanical and collision shops, including the quickest alignment readings in the industry, as well as comprehensive pre and post-alignment graphic printouts, plus integration with shop and dealer management software.
Additionally, WinAlign 17 also integrates with HunterNet 2, the company’s customer portal that displays results, ROI, as well as training and a host of other metrics for both individual shops and group locations.
Relating specifically to Canada, Managing Director John Peron provided Autosphere with a look at WinAlign and some of the other key products at the Global Tire Expo.
Heavy-duty commercial vehicle market
Currently, Hunter is placing significant focus on the heavy-duty commercial vehicle market and had its L494 Heavy-Duty Four Post lift with galvanized runways, a 35,000 lb lifting capacity and 300-inch wheelbase alignment capability on display, alongside its TCX635 HD tire changer and Quick Check Commercial inspection system.
Building upon the success of the Quick Check Align and Quick Tread Depth unmanned inspection systems that have proved popular with automotive dealer service departments and independent mechanical shops, these innovative new products provide commercial customers with state-of-the-art measuring and inspection tools that can shave significant amounts of time in the service bay.
Peron notes that the heavy-duty aligner enables accurate inspection readings on heavy-duty trucks, including alignment data that can be pushed into the cloud and stored and effectively managed, providing a considerable benefit for both owner-operators and fleets.
Quick Check Commercial takes pictures of the truck and trailer as it rolls through the inspection lane and can provide spec readings in a matter of seconds, using licence plate recognition to match the data to each truck and trailer combination. Data is quickly displayed on a flight board allowing the customer instant access.
“Based on feedback from commercial vehicle sources in Canada, traditional heavy-duty inspections on the tires alone can take up to 30-40 minutes manually,” said Peron.
“With Quick Check Commercial, we are able to support getting critical information in around 10 seconds, enabling owner-operators and fleet customers to make fast, informed decisions.”
Hunter also had on display its new ADAS and Collision Alignment systems with integration between ADASLink and WinAlign. ADASLink is Hunter’s scan tool that can be used to reset steering angle sensors and can examine any aspect of a vehicle that needs to be scanned. Peron explained that it can be paired with one of Hunter’s alignment machines or used independently.
Partnering with Bosch
Additionally, Hunter has partnered with Bosch for its ADAS fixture called the DAS 3000.
This enables the ADASLink to communicate directly with the alignment machine to provide all the scan and alignment calibration details on the vehicle which can be incorporated into a single report and uploaded to HunterNet in the cloud.
The new Collision Alignment system allows technicians to perform profitable ADAS blueprinting and pre-scanning functions in-house instead of outsourcing them, taking full control of the process and preventing significant delays when performing collision repairs on modern vehicles.
