What is the difference between a tire balance and a wheel alignment?

When it comes down to it, a car is a complex machine designed to turn the drive wheels to make the car move down the road. Whether required by law or not, everything else is for your comfort, convenience, safety, or luxury. If your engine cannot get your car to move, then none of the other bells and whistles matter.

When it comes to moving any vehicle, whether powered by an engine, your own two legs or pulled by animals, we figured out that when you wrap a wheel with rubber, it makes the ride so much smoother and safer. The rubber not only takes some of the bumps, so we don’t have to, but the tire’s traction also keeps the wheels on the road and protects the streets from being damaged. Did you see the Mythbusters when Adam and Jamie made car wheels out of manhole covers? Unfortunately, it didn’t end well for the tires or the road.

While the basic concept of rubber tires has been around longer than the horseless wagon, the technology has come a long way since the days of the Model T. Today, tires can be very expensive, so we have to do what we can to get the tires to last as long as possible. Two fundamental things that we do to extend the life of your tires are the tire balance and the wheel alignment. So, what are they, what’s the difference, and why are they important?

When we put a new tire on a rim, we first balance the tire. You might have seen a machine that spins the tire very fast, and then the mechanic will hammer on a small piece of metal to the rim in a specific spot, then rotate the tire again and repeat the process several times.

As much as manufacturers might try, wheels and rims are not perfect. Even very tiny imperfections that are well within tolerance for safety and performance can cause one side of a tire to be imperceptibly heavier or lighter than the other side. Even the slightest difference in weight can cause problems for a tire. When a tire is turning, the difference in weight can cause the tire to wear unevenly. If the weight difference is significant enough, it can also cause the tire, wheel, and the whole car to start to shake and vibrate. The shaking can even get violent enough to cause damage to other parts of the vehicle.

When the tire is spinning on that machine we spoke about, the sensors are finding those minuscule and otherwise unseen imbalances and telling us where they are and by how much the weight of the tire is off. Then, by adding small weights to either side of the rim at the spot of the imbalance, we are balancing out the entire wheel to help the tire ride evenly on the ground and avoid any vibration caused by the natural imbalances.

So now that you have 4 (more or less depending on the vehicle) tires, that means your car should drive straight and true, right? Well, not necessarily. That is where the wheel alignment comes in. You can have four perfectly balanced tires, but if your wheels are not aligned properly on the car, you will still wear out your tires faster than expected. The easiest way to tell if your vehicle is out of alignment is if your car pulls to one side as soon as it starts to move. If you are fighting to keep your car straight, then you probably need a wheel alignment.

Unlike tire balancing, the alignment does not look at individual tires. You do not align a car by adjusting the tires. Instead, an alignment checks the car’s suspension and ensures that the wheels are all perfectly aligned with the vehicle and each other. If you drove a perfectly aligned vehicle on a flat surface through a puddle of water, you should see two trails. Not four. The front and back wheels should be ideally in line with each other. If you drive a car on a flat road and took your hands off the wheel, which you should never do, the vehicle should remain on a perfectly straight path with no deviation.

Now that your tires are perfectly balanced and your wheels are aligned, you’re done, right? Oh, if it were only that easy. Besides regularly checking that the air pressure in the tires is all equal, you have to watch the tires for wear and tear. Over time, all tires wear down, but not all tires wear down at the same rate. For example, front tires will wear down faster than rear tires, especially in front-wheel drive vehicles. Front wheels wear faster because the front wheels handle the steering and a good portion of the braking.

This uneven wear across the tires is why we also rotate tires on a vehicle. Since front and rear tires wear differently, by rotating the tires, you are extending the life of the tires, getting as much safe use out of them as possible.

An axiom states that you need to take particular care of the things that get between you and the ground. You should have a good pair of shoes for walking. If you go camping, you should have a good sleeping bag to sleep in, and your car should have a good set of tires. There are several things you can do to extend the life of your tires. Come down to Sonny’s Auto Repair to make sure your tires are keeping you safe.