You drive a high-performance vehicle for a reason: You want superior power and the ability to handle it. Part of what allows you to handle your performance vehicle is the wheel alignment. Excelerate Performance is your one-stop shop for all of your performance automobile needs, including ensuring that the wheels are aligned properly. Let’s talk more about this below.
Why Wheel Alignment Is Important
As we said above, wheel alignment helps you handle your high-performance car. It makes controlling the automobile easier, especially at higher speeds. Wheel alignment ensures that your vehicle’s wheels touch the pavement evenly, both from top to bottom and side to side. Your wheels are aligned five different ways. They are the
- Toe-in and toe-out adjustment to ensure that the wheels are not duck-footed or pigeon-toed
- Camber adjustment to make certain the wheels do not lean to either side from top to bottom
- Caster adjustment to ensure that the straight-line tracking is not negative or positive
- Four-wheel adjustment to make certain that the wheels are aligned to each other
- Thrust line adjustment to ensure that the wheels are aligned to the thrust angle
If your wheels are not aligned properly in these five ways, your automobile will pull to the side when you are headed straight and your steering wheel logo will be tilted when the wheels are straight. You may also hear your wheels squeal when you turn around corners because they are not making direct contact with the pavement.
What Knocks the Wheels Out of Alignment?
Unfortunately, it’s pretty easy to knock your wheels out of alignment. There are plenty of road hazards out there that cause not only wheel alignment damage but also suspension damage. If you hit these hazards going too fast, you run the risk of knocking the wheels out of alignment and damaging the suspension. If you’re really speeding, you could break an axle.
As such, it’s important to slow down for road hazards to prevent damaging your high-performance vehicle’s wheel alignment and suspension. This also helps to take care of your tires. Specifically, these road hazards are
- Bumps in the road
- Cement markers
- Construction zones
- Hitting curbs
- Potholes
- Speed bumps
An automobile accident, even a minor fender-bender, can also knock your wheels out of alignment. Therefore, it’s important to have your wheel alignment checked after you’ve been in an incident.
As we said above, Excelerate Performance in Branford, CT, is your one-stop shop for all of your high-performance automotive service and repair needs. Give us a call today to schedule an appointment if you suspect that your wheels are out of alignment.