Alignment is the key to life…. when it comes to tire life!
Posted Friday, Oct 25, 2019
Do I Need Tire Alignment?
-Poughkeepsie NY
Wheel Alignment is often overlooked and full of shade tree advice. Lets "straighten" out a few misconceptions while keeping it simple in this post.
New cars built in factories "should be in alignment" as built, based upon the engineers calculations. When new cars are built, if everything gets welded and assembled properly they come out of the factory usually within specs. However often not perfect. Why? This is the first mystery of alignment.
The answer to this first part is that everything never happens perfectly, that's why some of the many angles and measurements are adjustable, because as the vehicle ages things get "old" and worn and it hits bumps in the road or goes too close to a curb. Impacts and time will degrade alignment. So will bolting it down to a car carrier.
As previously stated, age and time coupled with impacts take their toll. So every car manufacturer has their engineers write the users manual found in most glove compartments. In this book it says alignment should be checked periodically or every year. Why? Because things happen. Age and use take its toll.
The point to remember is that as you drive, the alignment was good months ago, but will degrade over time. If you could assign values to it and watch it on a graph it would be a stair stepped downward slope. If that graph had a 200,000 mile x axis at the point the first set of tires went your alignment is now in a poor place to start off a new set of tires. This is why at the very least you should always get an alignment when you buy new tires, or after a bad winter. Tires are expensive! $800 for many new cars or more, its cheap insurance to protect them with a $89 wheel alignment. Of course, you could take a chance and roll the dice, but its only 10% risk vs 90% reward.
