Wheel alignment or (tracking)

Wheel alignment or (tracking) are your car's wheels in line all the time?

They aren't necessarily. Speed bumps, high kerbs, pot holes and normal wear and tear on your car's suspension and steering could put the wheels out of alignment (tracking). Misalignment can be felt as your steering wheel may be pulling to the left or the right, in the longer term, it is your car tyres that will suffer – badly out wheel alignment can seriously reduce tyre life.

So, how can you correct poor wheel alignment, making your cars steering and braking better, as well as preserving maximum car tyres life. The good news is that car manufacturers have designed ways and means of adjusting wheel alignment. The good news again is that you can correct poor alignment at your local auto centre such as Pellon Auto centre in Halifax UK.

Good tyre companies (and some garages) have the equipment to check and adjust wheel alignment. All you have to do is take your car along and pay for the work. Then when the job is done drive away in the knowledge that your car is shipshape in the wheel alignment department.

What happens in a wheel alignment session?

Generally, three things are checked, and adjusted as necessary. The first check establishes that the car wheels are vertical, as viewed from the front or rear this is called “camber and caster”. Sometimes, the tyres may not be truly vertical this is sometimes normal. Some cars' tyres sit at a slight angle from the perpendicular. This is the camber angle, which can be adjusted to meet the car maker's specification (we use Auto-data) for our correct settings).

Wheel alignment at Pellon tyres using a laser machine

The second check involves the castor angle. Technically, the castor angle permits the wheels and tyres to return to straight ahead when the car is rolling forward with no steering input. As you know, your front wheels turn from side to side when you are turning the steering wheel (right or left). No matter how the wheels and tyres pivot, there is a line drawn through the centre of the axis on which they pivot and will be vertical. The line has to lean backwards slightly and if it doesn't, the steering will feel very odd. Again, this will be cured by adjustment.

The last check is called the 'toe'. All car suspension has a small degree of flexibility built into it (this is why your steering goes out when you hit an object). So, if the car tyres are parallel at rest, the drag between them and the road as the car moves, would cause this flexibility that would allow the wheels to splay very slightly, this is usually outwards from the bottom.

You would probably not notice this but your tyres would soon tell you that you have a wheel alignment problem, by wearing out the inner edges of their treads. So, the wheels are usually set to 'toe-in', so they run at almost parallel. If the tyres toe out, if the toe-in is too much or if the toe angle varies from side to side, the car tyres will wear out prematurely. Having your wheels aligned would cure this problem.

wheel alignment in the old days used to be checked and adjusted with a special gauge

That used a mirror and lens system. Nowadays, we measure the angles involved using laser wheel alignment equipment. In some cases, worn suspension or steering components mean that a problem will need to be rectified and then adjusted .
Is it possible to stop your car's wheels becoming misaligned and making the tyres suffer? In a word, yes. Don't kerb your car tyres. Avoid potholes and drive round every pot hole carefully. Always go over speed bumps with the tyres on one side of your car. Straddling speed bumps is a major cause of both wheel misalignment and tyre damage.

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