My Full-susser and both my lads’ bikes had been showing consistent and troublesome shifting issues for some time
Went through all the usual routines; changed to full outers, new cables, re-indexing etc but to no avail. All three prove difficult to index (get it right at the top end, bottom end farked and vice-versa) and ghost shifting.
Suspected bent/misaligned hangers so went to my LBS. £20 per bike (reasonable enough I guess) probably could have got all three for £50. Inquire as to cost of tool; £65 for the Park Tools alignment tool, so ordered. Got it at the weekend, an hour or so I’ve checked and re-aligned hangers on all three (all were out by 1/2 to 1 inch measured at the rim by the tool).
All now working beautifully.
Cost me £5 more than the shop doing it but now I’m fully capable of the fix forevermore.
So while the tool seems expensive (and probably is, for what it is) it WILL save me money.
If you suffer regularly get one. Better still club together with a few mates and ‘pool’ the tool