Direction and Wheel Alignment
Direction and Wheel Alignment Service in Burlington
Alignment is important to the handling and performance of your vehicle. If your vehicle’s alignment is out, it can affect the tire wear, steering and suspension components. We recommend getting your vehicle’s alignment checked as per regular maintenance but also to protect your new tire investment to ensure even wear on all treads.
Fairview Tire AutoPro invests in high-end equipment to help get accurate readings on your vehicle’s alignment. The Hunter HawkEye Elite alignment machine is unmatched in the industry. Computerized images and measurements are captured in 70 seconds, four precision cameras provide alignment measurements with pinpoint accuracy.
Hunter’s QuickGrip® adaptors feature a light design and narrow profile, providing fast and efficient readings. Built-in support for ADAS calibrations and OEM resets, easy-clamping, no metal-to-metal contact and easy-to-understand graphic representation of camber, toe to caster. The machine also provides pre and post readings for your records and peace of mind.
Direction and Wheel Alignment Service at Fairview Tire Autopro
It doesn’t take much to misalign a vehicle: potholes, curbs, Burlington’s winter conditions, and even regular daily driving can have adverse effects on your vehicle’s suspension system and steering components.
Wheel alignment isn’t just about driving straight; it’s about safe driving and reducing tire wear. Ensuring that your wheels are set to factory specifications helps your tires wear evenly and improves fuel efficiency.
Wheel alignment involves adjusting the steering and suspension angles of your vehicle to match the initial specifications. This intricate process involves adjusting the steering and suspension angles to match the initial specifications, ensuring alignment with the vehicle’s centerline for improved maneuverability and energy efficiency.
Performing alignment requires the use of specialized equipment that assesses wheel angles relative to your vehicle’s original specifications. Subsequently, the technician makes the necessary adjustments.
When your vehicle requires realignment, the skilled professionals at Fairview Tire AutoPro will perform the most appropriate alignment for your vehicle.
Tire Geometry Check
Wheel Alignment
Vehicle's Health Check
Direction and Wheel Alignment Service Needed: Warning Signs
Turning your car’s steering wheel may seem simple, but a lot happens between your wheel and your car’s tires. This complex system relies on several processes to function properly.
Regular wheel alignment service should be part of your vehicle’s basic maintenance routine, ideally twice a year. Poor tire and wheel alignment can negatively impact fuel efficiency, accelerate tire wear, and compromise overall vehicle maneuverability.
When your vehicle maintains alignment, all four wheels are oriented in the same direction, aligned from front to back. This ensures proper contact with the road, ensuring your safety.
Wheel alignment service is recommended when:
- You need to hold the steering wheel to drive straight, experiencing pulling
- New tires are installed
- Your vehicle has been involved in a collision (accident, violent impact with a curb, pothole, etc.)
- Steering or suspension parts have been replaced
- Uneven tire wear is observed
Your steering wheel is off-center - The vehicle pulls to one side while driving
Direction and Wheel Alignment Service: How Does It Work?
Wheel alignment typically takes between 30 to 60 minutes, during which your Fairview Tire AutoPro mechanic will check your tire pressure, steering, and suspension.
Steering and wheel alignment are adjusted through their three main parts:
1. Caster
2. Camber
3. Toe In & Out
Each part is returned to the manufacturer’s original specifications during maintenance.
Caster
This is the forward (negative) or backwards (positive) tilt of the spindle steering axis. It is what causes your steering to ‘self-centre’.
Correct caster is almost always positive. Look at a bicycle – the front forks have an obvious rearward tilt to the handlebars, and so are giving positive caster.
The whole point of it is to give the car (or bike) a noticeable center point of the steering – a point where it’s obvious the car will be going in straight line.
Camber
Camber is the tilt of the top of a wheel inward or outwards (negative or positive).
Proper camber (along with toe and caster) makes sure that the tire tread surface is as flat as possible on the road surface. If your camber is out, you’ll get tire wear.
Too much negative camber (wheels tilt inwards) causes tread and tire wear on the inside edge of the tire. Consequently, too much positive camber causes wear on the outside edge.
Toe In & Out
‘Toe’ is the term given to the left-right alignment of the front wheels relative to each other. Toe-in is where the front edge of the wheels are closer together than the rear, and toe-out is the opposite.
Toe-in counteracts the tendency for the wheels to toe-out under power, like hard acceleration or at highway speeds (where toe-in disappears). Toe-out counteracts the tendency for the front wheels to toe-in when turning at highway speeds.
A typical symptom of too much toe-in will be excessive wear and feathering on the outer edges of the tire tread section. Similarly, too much toe-out will cause the same feathering wear patterns on the inner edges of the tread pattern.