Wheel Alignment

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Here are three of the most common signs that suggest your vehicle needs alignment;

1. Uneven and excessive tyre wear - If your vehicles tyres have been wearing unevenly for a while, you may be able to see the effects of misalignment with one edge of the tyre having plenty of tread and the other having very little left. If you can’t visibly see the wear, run your hands over the tyre and you'll feel where the rubber has worn excessively on the inside or outside edges but be careful, in extreme cases of excessive wear, fine wire may be protruding from the rubber.
2. Vehicle favouring the left or right side of the road - When driving along a straight flat road, if you have to compensate through the steering wheel to keep the car driving in a straight line or if the car drifts to the left or right under braking, this is a symptom of misalignment.
3. Crooked steering wheel - Perhaps one of the most obvious and frustrating symptoms of misalignment is when you hold the steering wheel level and the vehicle drifts to either the left or right side of the road.

In simple terms no, but tracking forms part of the alignment process hence the confusion, historically tracking was the name given to the process of adjusting just the toe angle of a vehicles front wheels, this made sense because in years gone by this was the only adjustment that vehicles had.

Technology has of course moved on, wheel alignment takes into account not just the toe angle of the front wheels but the camber, castor and the position of the rear wheels. If your vehicle requires four wheel alignment and you take it to a garage just to have the tracking done, you'll still end up with problems caused by misalignment, such as uneven tyre wear or a crooked steering wheel.

We can advise you which type of alignment you require based on your reg but as a rule, smaller entry level vehicles typically only require front wheel alignment but any vehicle with independent rear suspension (such as a Ford Focus or VW Golf) will require four wheel alignment.

If your ignore your vehicles misalignment, not only will you end up spending far more money than is necessary on both replacement tyres and fuel but it's safety will be impacted, excessive tyre wear is an obvious expense but a misaligned vehicle can use up to 10% more fuel. For electric vehicles along with tyre wear, misalignment significantly reduces the battery range and if you have a modern vehicle fitted with advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), in the event of an emergency some of those safety features may not operate properly.