About Us
SharkEye Wheel Aligners UK Ltd is the UK's leading supplier of wheel alignment equipment for cars, vans and trucks. We also export our products around the world, from Myanmar to Argentina and just about everywhere in between. Our laser-based 2D and 3D aligners are a standard in the UK automotive industry. Exceptionally high quality at affordable prices.
Misaligned wheels are a common problem often overlooked by motorists. Keeping your vehicle's wheels aligned can cut your fuel consumption by up to 8%, increase your tyres' longevity by up to 25% and cut greenhouse emissions.
The SharkEye team prides itself on offering first-class customer care, support, trouble-shooting and training both direct to our customers and to our sales reps around the UK and the world.
We understand the importance of staying up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies. That’s why we are continually investing in research and development to ensure our products remain the very best on the market.
So whether you’re a small independent garage or a large automotive dealership, we have the wheel alignment products to meet your needs and, more importantly, your customers' needs.
Our Mission
Provide reliable and efficient wheel aligners which meet our customers' needs - earning the trust of everyone we deal with.
Our story so far ...
Our first vehicle wheel aligners were made in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK, in the late 1990s by our founder Tom Jackson. Back then the SharkEye brand didn’t exist. We were instead known as SES-QuickTrak.
1987
How It Started
But to get the full history, we need to go back to 1987 when SuperTracker, a British company run by a chap called Keith Lovesy, came up with a brain wave that transformed Europe’s auto-shop sector: ‘hang-on’ light beam wheel aligners.
This pleasingly simple method overcame one major shortcoming of traditional clamp-on wheel aligners – the fact that you needed to compensate for the inevitable inaccuracies in readings caused by clamping the kit on to wheels. By contrast, Keith’s hang-on system just used gravity.
Keith was joined at SuperTracker by Tom Jackson, a British Army veteran (Royal Engineers), who proved a very successful salesman of their revolutionary wheel aligners.
1997
SES - QuickTrak
After 10 years Tom left SuperTracker, and in true Steve Jobs fashion he made a SuperTracker ‘clone’ after setting up SES-QuickTrak in Stoke. We still service many of these machines today. In the early 2000s Chinese wheel alignment firms copied them. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as Oscar Wilde once famously said.
Tom later sold SES-QuickTrak to his nephews. While he took a spell in Thailand, where he met his wife, Mia, SES-QuickTrak went bust. On his return to the UK in 2009, Tom re-established QuickTrak, which was headquartered initially in the garage of his home in South Yorkshire.
He enlisted the services of a local fabrication company to do the steel work on his new-generation aligners. Paul and Duncan, owners of said fabricator, worked with Tom to make a more efficient design, which is still in place today. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
QuickTrak’s redesigned car aligners sold well, largely on eBay.uk, but there was no world-conquering ambition behind it. That said, it was a quality product - proven by the fact many remain in use to this day.
2010
A Meeting Of Minds
Carl Gibson entered the picture in 2010. Carl owned a truck wheel alignment company, Right Track, which in 2010 became a franchised business selling and servicing products including SuperTrackers’ HGV twin-steer aligners. However, SuperTrackers’ then management were very inflexible on prices for bulk and repeat purchases. Cue, another split ... one which led us to where we are today.
Carl spotted Tom’s products on eBay. And boom. Two Yorkshiremen with three things in common: an eye for business, wheel alignment expertise and frustration with unadventurous management.
Together they designed QuickTrak’s first commercial vehicle wheel aligner. Carl sold it to his franchises and Tom to his growing distributor base. All was good. Although not officially business partners they remained close right up until Tom’s untimely death from cancer in 2015.
Between 2010 and 2015 Tom moved from his garage into an industrial unit on the Sheffield-Rotherham border to keep up with growing demand. Carl established a chain of fast-fit and MOT garages in the East Midlands called RightFit Autocentres, continuing to sell QuickTrak Truck Aligners to end-users.
QuickTrak’s redesigned car aligners sold well, largely on eBay.uk, but there was no world-conquering ambition behind it. That said, it was a quality product - proven by the fact many remain in use to this day.
2016
The Birth Of SharkEye
Paul and Duncan (remember - the steel fabricator chaps from earlier?) purchased Quicktrak from Tom’s widow. Carl agreed to help with technical aftercare when needed. In 2016 Carl purchased a third of QuickTrak on the agreement sole control over the day-to-day running remained with him. Meanwhile RightFit Autocentres was sold to enable full concentration on QuickTrak’s global potential.
Time passed. Quicktrak became SharkEye. SuperTracker went bust. Carl purchased the remaining share in 2019 to take sole ownership. Paul and Duncan negotiated an exclusive deal to fabricate all the metal components for SharkEye’s aligners and associated products. This helps SharkEye retain its prestigious ‘Made in Sheffield’ mark.
2024
onwards
An Exciting Future Ahead
SharkEye’s product range continues to expand. We’re now based at a bigger 10,000 square-foot unit at Hellaby near Rotherham. We have a showroom / training centre in Worksop, Notts, warehouses in USA and India, and plans to franchise the SharkEye’s service and calibration across the UK and beyond. Watch this space...