Wheel allignment / Tracking

Wheel alignment or tracking refers to the procedure of lining up the components of your steering including the camber, caster and toe. Wheels that are not aligned properly can wear out your tyres a lot quicker and along with steering and handling issues it can also damage the suspension system of your car.

Possible warning signs or indications showing that your vehicles wheel alignment is out include a constant steering pull to one side, a squeaky tyre noise when making turns, possible vibrations the faster you travel and a instant change in direction where the car just drags to the other side when you hit a bump on the road. Other signs incude looking at the tyre for uneven wear especially on the inside shoulder or outisde, if your tyres are wearing down excessively on the inside or ousside on both tyres then this is could be down to the allignment out. If youre vehcile is steering on one side you should also look for other signs including tyre wear in most cases there are other issues including uneven tyre pressure or even tyre wear which can cause the vehicle to steer one side.

Nowadays wheel alignment has become computerised, there used to be the good old-fashioned guess way once upon a time, we then moved on to lasers ad now as cars have become more complex and modern we have computerised wheel aligment. The computerised wheel alignment allows you to measure all the angles that are adjustable and non adjustable, the angles that can’t be adjusted would need to be repaired or replaced with new parts. The angles that can be adjusted are most likely to be the toe, camber, caster and thrust angle.

There are some motorists who confuse the wheel alignment with wheel balancing. The alighment is not done as part of the service offeried when changing a tyre. Wheel alignment done on a vehicle lift this usualy requies a booking with most garages and depending on the centre their own charges.