A Pull, a Crooked Wheel and a Feathered Edge Are Three Different Problems

Three different customers can describe three different complaints and mean three different repairs. One says the car pulls to the right on the highway. Another says the steering wheel sits crooked even though the car drives straight. A third says the front tires are wearing unevenly on one edge. All three sound like 'alignment' at the counter, and only some of them actually are.

The pull

A pull is when the car wants to drift to one side on its own, and you have to hold the wheel slightly against it to stay straight. Alignment can cause this, but so can a tire that is low on air, a set of tires with different tread designs on the same axle, or a brake that is dragging slightly on one side. Before we touch the alignment rack, we check tire pressure and brake drag, because adjusting the alignment on a car that is actually pulling from a dragging brake fixes nothing and wastes your money.

The crooked wheel

This is the steering wheel sitting off to one side, say tilted toward 11 o'clock, while the car itself tracks perfectly straight down the road. That is usually not a safety issue and not always even an alignment issue; sometimes it is left over from a previous repair where the wheel was not centered when it was put back on. Other times it is genuinely toe out of adjustment. The only way to tell the two apart is to actually measure it, not guess from how it looks.

The feathered edge

Feathering is a specific wear pattern where each tread block is smooth on one edge and sharp on the other, so the tire feels rough when you run your hand across it in one direction and smooth in the other. This one really is almost always alignment, specifically toe being off, and it is one of the more expensive mistakes to ignore, because by the time you feel it with your hand, the tire has already lost tread it will not get back.

What the John Bean diagnostic alignment system actually measures

We do not eyeball alignment. The John Bean diagnostic alignment system measures three angles on each wheel:

• Camber, how far the top of the tire leans in or out from vertical when you look at the car head on
• Caster, the angle of the steering axis when you look at the car from the side, which affects how the steering returns to center
• Toe, whether the front edges of the tires point slightly in or out relative to each other, the setting most responsible for feathering and pull

When alignment is the fix, and when it is not

An alignment adjusts angles, it does not fix a worn part. If a tie rod end, a ball joint, or a control arm bushing is worn out, the alignment will not hold, sometimes not even through the drive home. That is why we inspect the steering and suspension components before we put a car on the rack, not after. Adjusting the angles on a car with a worn part is a way to pay for the same alignment twice.

Why it is worth checking even without a complaint

Alignment can drift slowly enough that you never notice a specific moment when it happened, a pothole on Route 95, a curb tapped while parking, or just normal wear on suspension parts over a few years. By the time it is bad enough to feel through the wheel, it has usually already been eating tread off your tires for months. New tires are a good moment to have it checked either way, since there is no point putting a fresh set on a car that is going to wear the edges off them again inside a year.

If your car pulls, wears unevenly, or just does not feel right on the highway, we will look at it properly on the John Bean system rather than guess. If you have an estimate from elsewhere for the same work, bring it in and we will match it or beat it, some restrictions apply, and the work carries our nationwide warranty up to 24 months. Call (401) 394-3041 or bring it by 580 Pawtucket Ave.