Is Your Vehicle Misaligned?

When you drive your vehicle, you expect it to be a smooth and pleasurable experience. At no point do you expect to experience rumbles, vibrations, and steering problems. Well, if your vehicle happens to fall out of alignment, your vehicle could potentially suffer from all of that and much more! Wheel misalignment can occur due to a number of different things, but the common cause for it is when you accidentally drive over a pothole or curb. Although you may think that something that small could knock your vehicle off alignment, you might be surprised by how much damage it can actually cause.

The aspect about misalignment that makes it so frustrating is that there isn’t visible damage you can see. You’ll only notice the issue when you are driving. Although a wheel alignment service is best left to professionals, it’ll still be helpful for you to know the signs of misalignment. Here are three things you should look for if you fear that your vehicle has fallen out of proper alignment!

Pulling

Pulling, whether it’s sharp or slight, can occur due to misalignment or underinflated tires. To rule out your tires, simply check the tire pressure. If it’s correct and your vehicle is still pulling to one side, then you are dealing with wheel misalignment.

If the pulling isn’t as noticeable, you can test your vehicle by going out to an empty parking lot. While slowly driving your vehicle, let go of the steering wheel and pay attention to how your vehicle responds. If you notice it is drifting to one side instead of staying straight, you are dealing with a minor wheel misalignment. Although this may be easy to dismiss, it’s still important you see us as soon as possible. Letting the problem persist could cause it to get worse over time!

Minor or Major Vibrations

Steering wheel vibrations can occur due to wheel misalignment or an unbalanced tire. To properly determine what’s wrong with your vehicle, you will need to visit our shop and have a professional technician take a look for you. If the issue is misalignment, the cause for it is that the tires are actually working against each other and pulling in opposite directions. Vibrations can be major or minor, depending on the severity of the vibrations and you’ll typically experience them at higher speeds! A vehicle can be difficult to handle when this is happening so make sure you visit our shop as soon as you can!

Uneven Tire Wear

A classic sign of wheel misalignment. When checking the tread wear on your tires, make sure you look at the tires in sets -- the front and back. If the front set of tires do not have the same tread wear as the back set of tires, then you are almost certainly dealing with wheel misalignment. Letting this issue persist can speed the rate of degradation your tire will experience and you may have to replace them a lot sooner than you’d like. Along with that, the tires may not wear out at the same rate and you’ll have to replace them one at a time, which can be a frustrating process to go through!