Wheel Alignment

Wheel Alignment Services in Germantown, MD

Maintaining proper wheel alignment is essential for optimal drivability. Correctly aligned wheels make your vehicle drive smoother and your tires last longer, and, obviously, keeps your wheels pointed in the right direction.

Proper wheel alignment also makes your car require less energy to run – on drastic cases, poor alignment can cause your car’s fuel efficiency to decrease dramatically. This makes proper maintenance of your wheel’s alignment a very wise financial choice, since it’ll save fuel and make sure you don’t have to replace them too early due to this sort of issue.

It’s hard to notice when your car has alignment problems just by looking. Sometimes its really easy to detect for other reasons – if your car is pulling to one side of the road, for instance, it’s almost guaranteed to be an alignment issue, and vibrations in the steering wheel might suggest you have an alignment problem as well. Sometimes, though, the only signs are the rapid or uneven tire wear, and this can be attributed to a variety of different problems. It’s a good idea to have your wheel alignment checked once every six thousand miles you run, just to be safe.

Here are some good tips to keep your wheels aligned:

    • Drive conservatively. Driving down roads that are poorly maintained, driving through pot holes and hitting curbs can all have a negative impact on your alignment.
    • Avoid carrying junk on your trunk. Excess weight on the back end of your car will lower its height and end up throwing off its alignment. Remove anything you don’t need for your trunk, and make sure to use it only when necessary.
    • Make sure to maintain correct air pressure in your tires. If their pressure is incorrect or uneven, the wheels will quickly become misaligned.

It’s important to remember that wheel misalignment is, in the end, inevitable, so you should have your alignment checked frequently even though you take these safety measures. In order for your vehicle to work exactly as smoothly as the manufacturer intended it to, you must keep very precise alignment, and it’s unrealistic to expect the wheels to stay so precisely in place after a few thousand miles.

A wheel alignment check tends to consist on three things:

      • Inspection of your vehicle’s steering and suspension systems. This should include tire condition and air pressure checks.
      • Placement of the vehicle on an alignment rack, which utilizes laser sensors in order to precisely measure the current alignment of each wheel.
      • Verification of the manufacturer specifications for toe, caster and camber angles.

If you notice that your car is pulling to the left or right, that your tires are wearing in an uneven or unusually fast way, your steering wheel is crooked when you’re driving in a straight line, or your tires are squealing, it’s probably time to have your wheel alignment checked. If you haven’t noticed these problems but you like to be cautious, make sure to have your alignment checked every 6,000 miles ran. Regarding our tire services it’s also very important to keep in mind regular tire rotation and tire balancing.