We like to draw your attention to underappreciated improvements you can make to your car and few are more underappreciated than a good four-wheel alignment. While it\u2019s probably not at the top of anyone\u2019s list of desirable modifications for their car, getting it properly aligned can save you money, enhance handling, and make you both safer and faster.<\/p>\n
Wheel alignment is pretty much what it sounds like \u2013 making sure your wheels are pointed in the right direction. Your car will have been delivered from factory set-up to handle a specific way. If the wheels aren\u2019t pointing where they\u2019re supposed to be, it will no longer be doing that.
\nCommon, and annoying, symptoms of misaligned wheels<\/p>\n
There are a number of ways of spotting when your wheels aren\u2019t aligned as they should be, including:<\/p>\n
One of your tyres wearing much quicker than the others, or in an unusual fashion can often indicate that the wheel it is on is out of alignment. The inside shoulder of the tyre wearing out way before the rest of the tyre is a common problem on some cars. This type of wear is especially awkward because you don\u2019t tend to notice it until the car is up on a ramp, which is often at MOT time.<\/p>\n
This alone should be a good reason for getting your alignment checked regularly. A relatively cheap wheel alignment session can save you spending a lot of money replacing tyres.<\/p>\n
Your car should travel in a straight line when the wheel is straight. If you\u2019re constantly having to correct your steering to keep travelling in a straight line, there is potentially a problem.<\/p>\n
The steering wheel should be flat and level when the car is travelling straight. If it\u2019s not, it needs adjusting to match the wheels.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re constantly getting vibration through the steering wheel this could be a symptom of poor alignment. It can also be the result of other problems too, which is why you ideally want a professional to look at the car.<\/p>\n
This one is a bit vaguer than the others but bear with us. You may notice that the vehicle just isn\u2019t driving right in corners, without immediately knowing why. There can be several causes, but it\u2019s worth considering wheel alignment.<\/p>\n
You will probably have heard people refer to getting the tracking of a car checked. This is slightly old terminology for something very similar. In the past, \u201ctracking\u201d often referred to getting only one measurement on the front wheels checked. We\u2019re not sure that this is necessarily the case now, but it\u2019s important to be clear when booking your car in.<\/p>\n
As your rear wheels also play a huge part in the stability and good handling of your car it\u2019s worth getting both axles checked. Whatever your chosen garage calls this process, it\u2019s important to confirm that both axles are getting done on a modern alignment machine.<\/p>\n
Your cars suspension has a hard life. Potholes and the like mean it receives a daily battering. When you consider the state of the roads you drive on every day, you\u2019ll probably wonder why you\u2019re not having more problems with it!<\/p>\n
Driving into the kerb can bend suspension components. This can include at low speeds while parking. Vehicles which get parked on street are more likely to suffer.<\/p>\n
Potholes can cause all sorts of damage, depending on their depth and shape. Alignment is one of the things that can suffer. As there are several others, we\u2019d always recommend getting your vehicle looked at if you\u2019ve driven through a big pot-hole and something feels off.<\/p>\n
Whatever suspension set-up your vehicle has, there will be bits of it that are intended to move, but only in a specified direction. These will be mounted using rubber suspension bushes. These are a special type of mounting that allows movement. They tend to include rubber, for purposes of insulating you from road noise.<\/p>\n
This rubber will wear out over time and a control arm that only moved up and down can start to wobble from side to side (or vice versa!). Once your wheel is moving in directions it was never intended to, undesirable handling characteristics can result.<\/p>\n
In extreme cases this can cause unsafe handling, so it\u2019s definitely worth staying on top of replacing worn bushes. One popular upgrade here is replacing worn rubber bushes with polyurethane bushes. These do not wear or weather like rubber bushes. In some cases, bushes that alter suspension geometry for enhanced performance are available. These allow you to increase caster or camber.<\/p>\n
Any time you modify your cars suspension, it\u2019s worth getting the alignment checked. Taking your cars suspension to bits to fit new parts can result in it going back together slightly differently.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re modifying your car a lot, you might discover that some additional parts are needed to correct the alignment. Drastically altering suspension geometry (by lowering your vehicle a lot for example) can completely throw off how it was designed to work from the factory. If this is a common issue, there may well be a kit or modified suspension part designed to fix it.<\/p>\n
One common example is roll-centre correction. If you lower a vehicle a lot, suspension arms which sat more or less straight out will now be sat angled upwards. This in turn has a knock-on effect on how the vehicle corners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We like to draw your attention to underappreciated improvements you can make to your car and few are more underappreciated than a good four-wheel alignment. While it\u2019s probably not at the top of anyone\u2019s list of desirable modifications for their car, getting it properly aligned can save you money, enhance handling, and make you both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-tips"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361,"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themes.timgreen.ws\/automotiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}