The Importance of Wheel Alignment
As motorists, we usually want the best for our cars and for our cars to perform at their best. We therefore spend a lot of time and effort maintaining them but often overlook a critical part of automobile care – wheel alignment.
What Is Wheel Alignment?
Wheel alignment is a process where qualified automotive service technicians adjust (or align) the angles of the wheels to the manufacturer’s specifications. Different automobile types will have different specifications and different techniques to aligning the wheels but a suitably qualified professional will be able to adjust the angles of your wheels to the correct specifications.
What Causes Wheel To Become Misaligned?
Logically, for wheels to need alignment, something must be causing them to become misaligned. This is true but it is not always easy to pinpoint exactly what caused the misalignment as many factors can lead to wheel misalignment. These include things such as road conditions, hitting a bump or even scraping the sidewalk. Good driving habits can decrease the chances of wheel misalignment but sometimes life happens.
How Do I Know When I Should Get My Wheels Aligned?
As you can imagine, if you’re not always sure when something has happened that has caused your wheels to misalign, it’s not always easy to know when to get them aligned. A qualified automotive service technician will be able to do a quick alignment check on your automobile to determine whether your wheels need to be aligned. You should also always think about how your automobile is behaving. Is it pulling to the side or did you hit a bump are things to consider when deciding whether wheel alignment services might be necessary.
Why Should I Align My Wheels Though?
It’s all good and well to know that your wheels are misaligned but why is it important to get them aligned? The simple answer is that automobiles are integrated precision machines.
In other words, in order to operate at the best of their ability, all the parts need to be set up correctly and this includes wheels which are aligned. Wheel alignment affects a range of things such as tire wear, fuel efficiency performance, handling, and safety.
A misalignment of wheels can be catastrophic as the automobile will not respond as it should. For example, a severely misaligned automobile may pull to one side. A simple distraction where the driver isn’t paying attention to the road can therefore cause the car to veer into a place it shouldn’t veer into.
Lastly, having your wheels aligned will increase the lifespan of your tires which will also make your vehicle handle better and therefore safer. Add to this, the decreased need to replace worn tires and it will save you money as well.
Wheel alignment is an important part of vehicle maintenance that can easily be checked and performed by a suitable professional. Properly aligned wheels will help ensure that your precision motoring instrument operates as it should while improving the safety of yourself and your loved ones.