Proper alignment ensures that your vehicle handles correctly and will help increase the life and performance of your tires. Failure to keep your vehicle's wheels properly aligned can result in:

• excessive tire wear
• irreparable tire damage,
• excessive fuel consumption and unsafe handling

Tires should be checked monthly for signs of irregular wear in both tread and shoulder areas. Irregular wear may indicate under-inflation or tire damage, or the need for wheel alignment or suspension repairs. A wheel alignment is also mandatory when a replacement set of tires is fitted to a car.

Three key elements involved in wheel alignment that affect the vehicle's performance are:

• Camber
  The angle between a perpendicular line and a line drawn through the centerline of the tire when the vehicle is viewed from the front. Camber helps distribute the vehicle's weight across the tire contact patch during cornering for reduced tread wear and is used to fine tune a vehicle's handling characteristics. Incorrect camber causes uneven tire wear, poor steering and vehicle stability, and vehicle pull.
• Caster
  The angle between a vertical line and a line drawn through the center of the ball joints (steering axis) when the vehicle is viewed from the side. An improper caster can cause hard steering, increased road shock, reduced straight line stability and cause the vehicle to pull one side or the other. A positive caster helps maintain directional control of the vehicle, helping to return the vehicle to a straight position when cornering, and helps compensate for the crown on a road. Most cars are engineered with a positive caster.
• Toe
  The angle between a line through the center of a vehicle and lines drawn through the centerlines of the tires when the vehicle is viewed from above. Toe alignment is the most critical to tire wear. Incorrect toe results in rapid and uneven wear.