Test For Determing If A Front End Alignment Is Required ?

Hello,

What a good, simple, test to determine if your car needs a front
end alignment ?

e.g., take your hands off the wheel and see how long it takes for
the car to drift to the right or left ?
Probably not a very good test; are there better ones a driver can perform ?

Or,...?

Thanks,
Bob

---
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Bob wrote:
> Hello,
>
> What a good, simple, test to determine if your car needs a front
> end alignment ?
>
> e.g., take your hands off the wheel and see how long it takes for
> the car to drift to the right or left ?
> Probably not a very good test; are there better ones a driver can perform ?
>
> Or,...?
>
> Thanks,
> Bob
>

That's one, Then look real close at the tires. Wear patterns can tell
you a lot.
http://www.procarcare.com/includes/c...dtirewear.html
can give you some ideas of what to look for.


--
Steve W.

On 2/15/2015 6:23 PM, Bob wrote:
> Hello,
>
> What a good, simple, test to determine if your car needs a front
> end alignment ?
>
> e.g., take your hands off the wheel and see how long it takes for
> the car to drift to the right or left ?
> Probably not a very good test; are there better ones a driver can perform ?
>
> Or,...?
>
> Thanks,
> Bob
>
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> http://www.avast.com
>
Alignment itself wont do you a lot of good if you got bad ball joints,
tie-rod ends, struts and other front end parts that can degrade

bob

In article >, bob > wrote:
>On 2/15/2015 6:23 PM, Bob wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> What a good, simple, test to determine if your car needs a front
>> end alignment ?
>>
>> e.g., take your hands off the wheel and see how long it takes for
>> the car to drift to the right or left ?
>> Probably not a very good test; are there better ones a driver can perform ?
>>
>> Or,...?
>>
>Alignment itself wont do you a lot of good if you got bad ball joints,
>tie-rod ends, struts and other front end parts that can degrade

If you take it to a competent professional alignment specialist, they will
check over your suspension, drive your car, and tell you that you need an
alignment or maybe you need new control arm bushings or whatever.

If you take it to the local tire store, God only knows WHAT will happen,
but you can be sure you'll be sold a lot of things you don't need and your
car will probably handle worse than it did before.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Sun, 15 Feb 2015 19:23:36 -0500, Bob > wrote:

>Hello,
>
>What a good, simple, test to determine if your car needs a front
>end alignment ?
>
>e.g., take your hands off the wheel and see how long it takes for
>the car to drift to the right or left ?
>Probably not a very good test; are there better ones a driver can perform ?
>
>Or,...?
>
>Thanks,
>Bob
>
>---
>This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>http://www.avast.com

Is this a car you've had for a while or one you know nothing about?
How many miles are on it. What kind of roads was it driven on.... If
you know nothing about it about the only things you can tell from
driving it is whether the steering wheel is centered and whether the
car pulls to one side or the other when you are going straight ahead
on level ground and take you hands off the wheel. If the steering
wheel is off center and/or the car pulls to one side it probably needs
at least a wheel alignment. But it might need parts replaced too.
Might even need tires, sometimes bad tires will make a car pull badly
to the side.

If you've owned the car for a while you can also look at how the tires
are wearing and see if they are wearing evenly or not.

One of the problems of assessing the need for wheel alignment is that
some of the things that can be "out of alignment" won't necessarily be
noticeable to the driver, esp if you are not used to how the car
*should* drive. And if the tires were just replaced you won't be able
to tell much from how they are wearing unless the alignment is so
screwed up it's literally chewing up the tires. If the caster is out
of spec the car may wander more then it really should be in most cases
you probably won't notice much if you aren't quite familiar with how
it *should* drive.

In my experience, most cars built in the past couple decades that have
not been driven over curbs or subjected to harsh pothole abuse will
not need wheel alignment for at least 50k miles. And even then they
most likely will only need the toe adjusted. Now that doesn't mean
they would still be perfectly in spec if you put them on a machine, it
just means they will still be 'close enough' that they don't have a
problem that needs fixing, except possibly for the toe.

You should be able to find a decent shop if you are in a large metro
area that will do an alignment check on a computerized machine with a
printout showing what's in/out of spec. and that will do the check for
$10 or $20 and then you can decide if you want to get it aligned for
another $60 or so.

The bottom line IMHO, for a car you are not familiar with at least, is
that if the steering wheel is off center you should figure it needs a
wheel alignment. It's probably either smacked a curb or big pothole
or it's just got enough wear on the suspension that it needs an
alignment.

Ashton Crusher wrote: "p if you are in a large metro
area that will do an alignment check on a computerized machine with a
printout showing what's in/out of spec. and that will do the check for
$10 or $20 and then you can decide if you want to get it aligned for
another $60 or so. "



HA HA HAAAA!! "Another $60 or so.."

You my friend definitely are not from nor have never lived
in western Connecticut. Around here front-ends START at
$100, and then $150-200 for 4-whl.

Another check is to find a flat level car park. Make sure tyre pressures are
correct. Turn left and right with almost full lock. If it goes smoothly in
one direction, but the other is scrubbing, you might have camber or castor
wrong on one side.