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Wheel alignment can be a bit of a confusing concept. Unlike other, more obvious automotive problems, a car with bad suspension alignment won't light a warning on your dash and you can't see it by looking closely at your car. Not only is improper alignment hard to detect, but it can also produce symptoms that could very well be something else, like tire wear, underinflated tires, overinflated tires or brake issues. The professionals at Don Owen Tire we are dedicated to helping you understand your wheel alignment so you will know what to look for and when to come to see us for help.

What You Should Know About Wheel Alignments

Let's start with the basics. All of your wheels and tires are supposed to roll in parallel with the car when you are headed down a straight stretch of road, that is, they are all meant to head in the exact same direction.  When they do, we say your car is, "in alignment." When you hit a curb, a pothole or debris in the road you can change fine suspension adjustments or bend suspension components which results in one or more of your wheels being slightly out of alignment. Alignment is also affected by replacing many suspension components like shocks, struts, tie rods, and ball joints.

Signs You Neeed Wheel Alignment Service

Although you can't see an alignment problem, you can watch and feel for symptoms of bad alignment.  These include wandering left or right when you are headed down a straight road, a crooked steering wheel when your front wheels are on center, uneven wear on your tires or vibration you can feel in the seat of your pants. 

Unfortunately, minor alignment issues may be very hard to feel which means the first symptom you will notice is tire wear that may result in the need to purchase expensive new rubber. Don Owen Tire suggests an alignment check every six months, even if you don't notice any telltale signs of a problem.  An alignment check is simply a lot less expensive than a new set of tires.

How is Wheel Alignment Service Performed? 

When you bring your car into our shop for an alignment check we will place your car on a sophisticated machine called an alignment rack. Special measuring devices are mounted to your wheels and a computer measures the relative position of your wheels in thousands of an inch, which are pretty small numbers. These measurements are compared to your manufacturer's specs and we adjust the suspension to put them in alignment again.

You may hear terms like toe-in, caster and camber tossed around when you talk about alignment. These are terms that refer to the geometry of your suspension and are the things that we adjust during your service. In brief, toe-in is a measure of parallelism between your left and right tires, camber is how close to perpendicular your wheel sits when rolling and caster is how far forward or rearward the wheel sits relative to the center of the axle.  

Schedule Your Next Wheel Alignment in Bloomington, IL Today!

The professional technicians at Don Owen Tire know how it is all supposed to work so you can just enjoy driving your car worry free. We will be happy to help you understand any of these terms when you drop by our place for a line-up job.If you feel or see the symptoms of a wheel alignment issue, have had suspension components changes or it has been more than six months since your last wheel alignment, call one of Don Owen Tire's two convenient Bloomington locations to schedule a professional wheel alignment service and other auto repairs today.