Wheel alignment is a lot more important to your tires and to your car, truck, or C/SUV than you might have ever realized. Eddie’s Auto Repair cautions that wheel alignment can directly affect your ability to control your automobile and your vehicle’s suspension. There a couple of things that you can do to help protect your wheel alignment. Slow down and look for the following road issues.
1. Bumps and Curbs
No road is completely smooth, but wouldn’t it be lovely if they were? Unfortunately, every little bump that you run over too fast knocks your wheels out of alignment a little bit more. This includes speed bumps. Actually, especially speed bumps, and, if you have a bad habit of clipping curbs, this, too, knocks your wheels out of alignment. Finally, the cement parking blocks at the end of parking spaces can affect your wheel alignment if you hit them too hard constantly.
2. Road Construction Debris
Road construction has known hazards. Running over debris from construction or the safety equipment used by construction crews can affect your alignment. We’re talking about more than just running over nails and getting flat tires. Another road construction hazard is those steel plates that are placed temporarily over holes. You might think that you don’t need to slow down for these plates because they aren’t that thick, but driving over them too fast is a bad idea.
3. Potholes
Potholes are just as bad as bumps and curbs, if not worse in many cases. Typically, you’re not even aware that a pothole is there until you run over it. This causes you to drive through bigger holes faster than you would like. Every time that happens, your wheels get knocked around a bit and the alignment goes out of whack. With a really big pothole, the out of whack factor increases in a big way. If it’s at all possible, do what you can do to avoid potholes.
4. Wrecks
Even a minor wreck can cause some damage to your vehicle; damage that you most likely can’t see. When your car is in an accident, one of the things you may want to get checked is your wheel alignment. This is a good idea even if you don’t think that there’s anything wrong with your car. If your car is drivable afterward yet you’re noticing pulling, you definitely have alignment issues caused by the automobile accident.
Haven’t had your wheel checked in more than two years? Stop by Eddie’s Auto Repair in Kingston, TN, so we can help. We’ll check your wheel alignment and realign your wheels if needed.
