There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding what an alignment is, by both the general public and even some technicians. It is best to think of an alignment as a maintenance item. The alignment consists of adjusting certain parts of a vehicle to the manufacture’s specific values or correcting the values of said vehicle to prevent future uneven tire wear. So to review, an alignment done correctly will have the vehicle track straight, causing tires to wear evenly and is required about once a year. Now, what an alignment is not: an alignment will almost never cause or correct a noise. ( Unless the measurements are severely off of manufacture specifications, causing a tire to drag opposing direction against the other three.) A bad alignment will rarely cause a vibration. Even a pull to one side while driving is rarely caused by an alignment. A few things that can cause a vehicle to pull to one side are a sticking brake caliper, a bad wheel bearing, or a large discrepancy in tire pressure Sometimes if a steering component is bad and a tire gets uneven wear as a result of that bad component, a pull to one side is likely. This condition may be remedied by replacement of the bad steering component, plus an alignment to “square up” the vehicle, and tire replacement to remedy the pull to one side and get you back on the road. It is a great idea to get an alignment done after any suspension work which may disturb the suspension geometry of the vehicle. Most vehicle manufacture’s will have a mileage and time recommendation for when an alignment is to be performed. Most common is 12,000 miles or once a year, whichever comes first. Although the alignment specs are in the computer and the heads are mounted on the car connected to the alignment machine via infrared, the technician making the alignment adjustments is still human, so the chance for human error does exist. Most savvy drivers get their alignment done in the Spring after the potholes have been filled and the roads have been repaired. Impact with a pothole, curb or something else in the road that shouldn’t be there may require an alignment, i.e. boulder, bowling ball or cinder block. One final thing, changing your tires does not affect your alignment.
Vehicle Alignment
