Wheel alignment – do’s and don’ts

If your car is making squeaking sound while turning or if you are feeling a pull while driving and the ride does not seem to be a perfect one then you should get the vehicle wheel alignment checked. Proper wheel alignment is a prerequisite for any vehicle. If the alignment is not right you are bound to feel that during the ride. The ride is not going to be as smooth as you expect it to be. Moreover, it puts stress on the tyres and results in their continuous wear and tear and early damage. A typically aligned wheel system will stand perpendicular to the ground and parallel to each other. This puts minimum stress on the wheels and helps them run longer. Moreover, the ride becomes smooth, and you do not feel any pull while driving.

Bad alignment of wheels can occur if the vehicle hits a pothole, goes over bumps or just swerves over the curbside. So wheel alignment may need to be done frequently, and for this purpose a wheel alignment machine is a prerequisite. Though such machines are ubiquitous in workshops and garages you can also get one for your home garage.

Wheel alignment machines

There are two types of wheel alignment machine – mechanical and computerized. The mechanical ones use gauges and strings for alignment whereas the computerized one uses laser guided computerized system. The computerized system uses a beam of light to measure the deviation, and you can calibrate the system yourself using mirrors. However, accurate wheel alignment requires experience. An experienced technician can definitely give you a properly aligned system with both mechanical and computerized system. However, a computerized laser guided wheel alignment machine is definitely superior to the mechanical ones in terms of accuracy as well as speed. However, the system itself needs to be regularly calibrated; otherwise it may produce inaccurate results.

Best wheel alignment

When you are taking your vehicle to the workshop for checking and adjusting wheel alignment you should see that the alignment is being done in accordance with manufacturers’ specifications unless you want the vehicle to perform in different ways than originally designed for. Racing cars and street cars often want a different alignment for specific purposes. You should also see that the workshop is using latest wheel alignment machine.

A computerized system will show a green arrow when the alignment is good. You can see that while the adjustment is being made. When all the adjustments are made you should ask for a print out as the computer records every reading.

Construction laser tools

You should never use a simple construction laser available in the home depot or local hardware store for alignment of the wheel on your own. These are construction lasers, and simply do not come up to the accuracy requirements of a vehicle wheel alignment machine. It has been observed that in construction lasers the laser beam on the spot is nearly half an inch higher than the same at the output. Moreover, the laser cannot be calibrated to the bubble level in such laser tools.