The Importance of Proper Wheel Alignment

Potholes on the road, bumpy brick roads, speed bumps in parking lots, and other rough types of terrain can do destroy to your vehicle's tires, to be definite.
However, aside from tire damage, they can also affect something else - your wheel alignment.
You may not be familiar with the term "wheel alignment"; however, you have probably ridden in or driven a vehicle that has improper alignment. The way to tell is simple: cars that tend to drift off to one side or the other when the driver is attempting to drive a straight course down the road or cars that seem to want to go the opposite way when a driver is negotiating a turn are the ones that have improper alignment.
Hitting the potholes and speed bumps and other not-so-smooth road surfaces whacks things around in the suspension and steering of a vehicle. This eventually causes the wheel alignment to come off of its course.
Wheel alignment can be done to fix this problem.
Moreover, it should be done because it will help to maximize tire life - not to mention make the vehicle much easier to handle for the owner.
In its most basic terms, a wheel alignment procedure is a way to make all of the tires parallel to each other and perpendicular to the ground. However, it is not really quite that simple.
To perform a wheel alignment, a mechanic must adjust the wheels in three different ways. This is necessary to get the wheels properly aligned.
The mechanic needs to adjust the camber of the wheels so that it is at 0%. The camber is the angle of the wheels, as measured from a front view.
The caster of the wheels must also be checked. This is the angle of the steering pivot attached to the suspension system. It is measured as viewed from the side of the vehicle.
Finally, the toe-in needs to be measured. This is the difference in the distance between the back of the wheels and the front of the wheels.
It is important for people to know that wheel alignment services should always begin and end with test drives. This is because the mechanics performing the wheel alignment need to be able to see and feel how the vehicle is driving before and after the alignment has been completed. Any mechanic or auto shop that does not do this may not be very thorough.
Also, before doing a wheel alignment, a good mechanic will check to make sure that all four wheels are in good condition with reasonably even wear patterns. If a wheel has an uneven wear pattern, and then that wheel is adjusted to a proper position, that wheel may not then be making full contact with the road.
If a person gets a wheel alignment done and then realizes a few days or a week later that the wheels again appear to be out of alignment, it could be due to the abovementioned uneven wear patterns on or more wheels. This person ought to return to the mechanic for another alignment and wheel replacement, most likely.