Wheel alignment is crucial not only for your driving experience but also for your safety. Wheels that are out of alignment will not respond to steering input correctly. It results in a loss of control. Also, the tendency to drift to one side due to misaligned wheels can put you in a dangerous situation in the middle of a busy road.

Signs that your wheels are out of alignment

• Your car tends to gradually pull to one side even when you attempt to drive in a straight path.
• Steering wheel rests in an off centre position even when the car is straight.
• Vibrations on the steering wheel rod.
• Uneven tyre-tread erosion.

When you notice these tendencies in your car, head over to an expert car garage for wheel alignment in Birmingham or anywhere else in the UK. It is best to leave this task of wheel alignment to the professionals as they have the necessary equipment for such operations.

Technicians in professional auto garages use a device with clamps that have electronic sensors. First, your car will be elevated from the ground by putting it on a lift. Then a technician will attach a wheel alignment device to your car’s wheel. The sensors in the clamp’s end will feed data to a computer system, which in turn will display readings. These readings will tell the technician about the degree of wheel misalignment.

Tips to help you avoid wheel misalignment

1. Driving with caution is perhaps the most generic tip, but experts repeatedly suggest it as it works. Driving cautiously may mean:
• Avoiding driving over potholes. When the tyres of your car drop into potholes, it sustains sharp upward forces.
• Not driving past speed bumps at high speed. This fault also affects the condition of your suspension system.

2. Changing the height of the suspension system. A wheel will need an alignment every time there is a change in the suspension state height.

Since the tyres are essential components of your car in more respects than one, problems with alignment will definitely affect the tyre condition. These effects will show in forms of certain types of wear.

• Camber wear

When the tyre tread assumes a slanted profile, with less material on one side than on other, it is a sign of camber wear. An obvious conclusion of this kind of tread wear is that there is some fault with the camber angle. Excess positive and negative camber both can cause erosion.

• Feather wear

On a glance, this wear may look like any other kind of wear, but on touching the surface, you will realise the pattern of this erosion. If you run your hands in one direction on the area of the wear, you will feel a certain amount of abrasion. On running in the other direction, the tread will feel completely smooth. This erosion results from toe misalignment.

If your tyres have abraded tread, there is no other solution but to replace them with new ones. If you are looking for new tyres in Birmingham, visit an auto garage that can provide you with expert guidance on choosing one. For example, Flaxely Tyres have a large selection of high quality tyres to suite your requirements.