Cars are one of the most celebrated inventions for centuries. They have allowed humans to easily commute over different places while saving a great amount of time. Earlier, humans used to commute either by walking or by carts across places. Worldwide commercialization of cars made human lives so much easier.
Wheels help achieve cars such long distances. They have a very complex structure within a car that is made possible by the wonders of automobile designs. Car wheels are often attached to transmissions by connecting nuts which are then controlled by a collaboration of axle and transmissions as the car moves. Apart from the regular wear and tear, car tyres also misalign over time as car happens to move over different surfaces. This is how a car’s friction influences a car’s wheels.
However, every tyre might not suffer from the same kind of deformity. Sometimes, car tyres are either loosely aligned or need some sort of balancing. Both concepts are quite different and are yet, confused for being the same at all times. Both of these ensure an optimal driving performance for your cars and keep going your car tyres going on for a longer time. Without any further ado, here are the differences that differentiate and help these ideas clearly:
Wheel Alignment:
Wheel alignment is a tyre configuration that peculiarly deals with the positioning of wheels on suspensions. It brings harmony between the wheel connectors and the suspensions to deliver a better handling performance. It is done using a relative measurement with respect to country roads.
The term alignment in wheel alignment is an ode to the angle of a tyre to another tyre. This change is usually recognized to be one of the most common symptoms of wheel misalignment.
Wheel alignment is a unique process that is carried out based on angles configurations. These are as follows:
- 1. Camber alignment:
Camber alignment deals with the setup of the camber angle. This angle refers to the interior or exterior angular position of the tyres with respect to the frontal view of a car. These angles are usually aligned either positively or negatively. In a positive camber, the tyres are facing exteriors while the negative camber, the tyres face the interiors. Both of these angles have common partitioning centerlines that give out the difference of the camber angle. - 2. Toe alignment:
Toe alignment refers to the arrangement of tyres with respect to headlights. Like Camber, toe alignment is also identified on the basis of common partitioning centerlines also has two forms of alignment, namely Toe In and Toe Out. The former is aligned with respect to the alignment while the latter arrangement defers from the headlights. These alignments can be usually detected upon observing from a top view. - 3. Caster alignment:
Caster alignment deals with the alignment of the steering axis with respect to center alignment. This alignment too comes in two forms in which the tyres are either aligned positively or negatively with respect to the centerline. The left alignment refers to positive alignment while the right alignment refers to the negative alignment. It is determined by side inspection of tyres.
Causes of wheel misalignment:
There are a variety of reasons that lead car buyers to go in for a wheel alignment service. These are as follows:
- Often driving a car in uneven terrains and potholes, leading to excessive tricky movements.
- High impact on cars due to accidents. (usually by damaging fenders and benders by hitting curbs.)
- Rough, tyre stressing driving.
- Overloading the car.
- Unmatched tyre installations.
- Normal wear and tear.
- Irregular oiling and other lubrication.
- Damaged parts like suspension ports.
Symptoms of wheel misalignment:
Different kinds of signs can give out when a car needs to go for a wheel alignment service. These are some of those common signs:
- An unusual pull of the car towards the opposite direction whenever you are turning in a certain direction.
- A sudden directional stretch, even when the car is moving in a forward line.
- A vibrating steering wheel while driving the car.
- A miscalibration of driving direction and steering wheel.
- Tyres of one side are more damaged than the other. Often witnessed by wear and tears like feathering, shoulder wear, and sawteeth.
Wheel balancing:
Wheel balancing, on the other hand, is a quite different concept from wheel alignment. It primarily refers to the balances created by the wheels amongst themselves. A balanced tyre arrangement that is well-aligned is essential for optimal handling performance. A set of imbalanced tyres often leads to shaky driving experience and often leads to quick one-sided tyre wear.
Once such tyres come to attention, the car should be immediately taken to the notice of an authorized service provider. This is because wheel balancing is carried by a special tyre balancing equipment. The equipment helps determine and troubleshoot the tyre balancing process. Once the level of imbalances are identified, a mechanic usually gets rebalancing those imbalanced tyres.
Causes of unbalanced wheels:
- Normal tyre wears and tears.
- Damaged suspension connections and parts.
- High impact on cars due to accidents. (usually by damaging fenders and benders by hitting curbs.)
- Irregular tyre caretaking. (filling air irregularly, not addressing tyre cracks, etc.)
Symptoms of unbalanced wheels:
- Increasing tyre vibrations on increasing car speeds.
- Different vibration sources give out different vibration locations. (for instance, steering wheels vibrations usually signify front misbalancing while seat vibrations signify back misbalancing.)
- Irregular wear and tear damage patterns in wheels. (excessive tread wear on one side, cracks on a single tyre, etc.)
- Formation of irregular patterns, cups, and scallops on car tyres.
How often should you get them done?
Tyre balancing and tyre alignment are of those essential things that one needs to go for apart from replacing tyres. Just like taking a car engine for regular maintenance, one needs to take of car tyres as well. A variety of factors related to use, time of service, performance, and as such play a key role in deciding when to take a car in for service.
A user manual offered by the car manufacturer can often guide about how and when to get things done the right way. However, it is noticed that tyre balancing is carried out more times than tyre alignment for a given period of time. Taking your car in for such things every 10000 miles or once a year is a good practice to keep the car in an ideal condition for a longer time.
Such practices may even be carried out by a service provider as a part of regular car maintenance or when one takes the car for tyre replacements. A good set of alignment and balancing services helps cars keep their optimal performance while being fuel-efficient and economic at the same time.