Wheel alignment, or tracking, is the process of ensuring the angle of a vehicle’s wheels are adjusted to the optimum position, as per the car manufacturer’s specifications. Motorists should be reminded that it is essential for safe motoring as incorrect alignment can cause tyres to wear quickly and unevenly and can upset the handling and safety of the vehicle.

It is easy for a motorist to cause wheel alignment problems: hitting a kerb or jolting over a pothole are two obvious ways to cause complications. Drivers should be advised to get their wheel alignment checked annually or after any

bump to the wheels and there are plenty of reasons to convince them to do this.

• Tyres set to the optimum position reduce wear and tear which prolong the life of tyres. Misaligned wheels have more resistance on the road which leads to rapid and irregular wear of the tyre. This is not only dangerous but means the motorist faces the cost of purchasing new tyres far earlier than they would otherwise need to, not to mention the cost of fines and points on a license. In fact the ideal wheel alignment can extend the life of a tyre by up to 12,000 miles.

The National Tyre Distributors AssociationNTDA Technical Helpline 0121 386 4624

Technical Guidance for Tyre Specialists

We are talking about the importance of wheel alignment. Also featured in this issue is equipment for your workshop; aligning and balancing equipment.

The importance of wheel alignment

In this issue …

Welcome!

www.ntda.co.uk

Bu etinService

Exclusive to Members | Issue: 06 July 2016

Welcome to the July edition of the Tyre Specialists Service Bulletin. This month we take a look at the importance of wheel balancing and wheel alignment. An important subject, both balancing and alignment are essential for safe motoring.

My thanks to Kwik-Fit, Dr Andrew Pryce, Founder and Managing Director of SigmaVision, Richard Bowler and wheel alignment specialists Absolute Alignment and Pro-Align for their contributions to, and information for, this Bulletin.

If you would like to contribute to future Tyre Specialist Service Bulletins, please do not hesitate to contact me: stefanhay@ntda.co.uk

Stefan HayChief Executive, NTDA

Issue 06 | The importance of wheel alignment

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Issue 06 | The importance of wheel alignment

• Correct wheel alignment improves safety. Faulty wheel alignment can cause unbalanced handling and stability and can lead to uneven braking. Add to this any adverse weather conditions and a car can become tricky to steer accurately.

• Aligned tyres means a more comfortable ride as improper wheel alignment affects a car’s suspension and leads to a bumpy ride.

• Perfectly aligned wheels save fuel and reduce pollution. More resistance on the road surface means the car uses more fuel to move forward. Reducing resistance saves fuel - and pounds at the pump.

Around 32 million replacement car tyres are fitted in the UK each year, which is a great market opportunity.

Tyres play an obvious safety role and an important part in the vehicle suspension system. If they are not properly serviced it is highly likely that the driver, who has

become much more accustomed to exceptional driveability levels, will notice the problem. It is vital that drivers can access a local tyre servicing specialist who is highly knowledgeable, skilled and equipped to handle the most challenging of tyre problems.

With nine out of every 10 cars on the road suffering from some form of misalignment, wheel alignment is a fundamental service for all workshops.

You only need to look at piles of old tyres in any workshop yard to see how many have needed replacing prematurely because of misalignment. Equipping your workshop with a modern aligner will allow you to proactively identify these misalignment servicing opportunities for customers.

It makes good business sense too. According to some manufacturers, the average profit margins on replacement tyres alone can be around just 16 per cent whereas the margin on alignment

can be as high as 88 per cent. So not only does the workshop win by selling a much higher margin service, the customer benefits too by getting the maximum life possible out of their tyres.

Wheel vibration issues can be a source of conflict and dispute between workshops and customers, however for a properly equipped tyre servicing specialist they can also be an opportunity.

Traditionally, workshops would attempt to solve vibration issues by rebalancing the tyre or using trial and error to rotate the wheel on the rim to try and cure the problem. However, with servicing equipment such as the Hunter Road Force balancer, tyre specialists can use intelligent diagnosis and force match the wheel and tyre assembly, by matching the stiff spot on the tyre sidewall with the low spot of the wheel rim. It is a highly specialist service but it allows workshops to develop an expert positioning, improve customer satisfaction and sell high-margin services.

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Equipment foryour workshop

Issue 06 | The importance of wheel alignment

Aligning and balancing equipment

Absolute Alignment’s 4-wheel alignment systems are so much more than the old fashioned “doing the tracking”. In the old days workshops would use hi-tech devices such as optical gauges, marks on the floor and even string to make the front wheels parallel – unfortunately not always referencing the front wheels to the position of the steering wheel or the rest of the car! The result was an angled steering wheel or permanent “crabbing” as the car went down the road with the rear wheels slightly off-line to the front.

Modern 4-wheel alignment has developed through “computerised” or “laser” systems and works by drawing a virtual box around the vehicle. Clever software in the base unit then calculates the angles of all 4 wheels compared to thousands of manufacturer specifications, and

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Laser devices

Laser based devices for rapid wheel alignment checks that measure camber and toe misalignment in degrees and minutes are now available from most garage equipment manufacturers. Such tools highlight misalignment problems that would otherwise lead to accelerated tyre wear. Laser-based tread depth measurement devices are now available that detect badly worn and illegal tyres and also detect wheel misalignment by measuring uneven tyre wear, especially edge wear.

These solutions allow garage owners to improve their workshop services and improve customer loyalty by presenting the client with objective and accurate data on the condition of their tyres.

Best practice would now extend to rapid vehicle diagnostics or eVHCs (electronic vehicle health checks) that examine a range of potential faults when a vehicle first enters the workshop. Such diagnostic checks can be run on 100 per cent of vehicles, irrespective of the reason for the service visit. These checks are beneficial to the workshop as they diagnose more faults and therefore increase service revenues. But they are also crucial in the detection of a growing number of badly worn and illegal tyres on the UK’s roads, as reported by NTDA and its members.

Issue 06 | The importance of wheel alignment

NTDA Technical Helpline

0121 386 4624

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produces easy to understand instructions on-screen showing what has to be adjusted. All this is done in just a couple of minutes, and a professional print out can be handed to the customer there and then to show how much work has to be carried out. Absolute Alignment’s equipment is run by a computer base unit that connects to the measuring heads via Bluetooth or wireless technology, meaning the workshop stays free from trailing leads. A repeater display linked to the technician’s tablet or smart phone means adjustment can be carried out without constant need to go back to the base unit, speeding up the job.

Leading the way in this clever technology is Absolute Alignment’s Techno series of four wheel aligners. For just a fiver

a day workshops can benefit from the profits of four wheel alignment, something that has traditionally been outsourced to “specialists”. As Absolute Alignment points out, why send so much profit to your business rival when you can have better quality control and better productivity on hand for the price of a couple of coffees?

More information can be found on Absolute Alignment’s web site www.absolutealignment.co.uk

Alignment Terminology

What’s the difference between wheel alignment and wheel balancing?

Balancing and alignment are two very different practices. Balancing addresses the distribution of weight around the wheel, while alignment looks at the position of the wheels in relation to the road and each other.

How do wheels become misaligned?

Wheels will generally become misaligned over time due largely to road conditions. Hitting a pothole, a curb or even a speed bump are all common causes of alignment problems which can lead to uneven tyre wear, the car pulling to the left or right, and uneven braking, so it’s recommended that you have your alignment checked every year.

Positive Camber

Toe in

Toe out

Negative Camber