How Are Wheel Alignments And Tire Balancing Different?
Posted on: 3 October 2022
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Is your vehicle not riding as smoothly as it once did? This could be due to something being off with your wires and wheels. Two common services that can be done are wheel alignments and tire balancing, but do you know the differences between the two? Here is what you need to know about these ways to smooth out your ride.
Tire Balancing
While you may think that a tire is perfectly round, that is not true when it comes to weight. There are heavier and lighter parts of the tire that cause an imbalance. This often leads to the car handling being a bit shaky when you reach high speeds on the freeway. A mechanic will perform spin balancing to make sure that the tire is spinning with completely even weight so that this problem does not happen.
Road force balancing is another type of tire balancing method that can be used, which not only helps balance the tire but find potential defects as well. It's done by placing a heavy roller against the tire to simulate the force of the tire on the road.
Once a mechanic runs the tire through either test, the machine will identify places where the tire is not balanced. The machine will then give specific recommendations for where to attach wheel weights around the tire and what weight to attach. This can give the tire an even weight distribution.
Wheel Alignments
Wheel alignments are a bit different since it makes sure that all four wheels are pointed completely straight and in relation to the road. This helps smooth out your ride by ensuring that the tires are wearing down evenly, and helps your car travel in a straight line by not having to make corrections.
A wheel alignment is performed by putting the car on a hoist and then putting special sensors on each wheel. A computer then calculates how straight the tire is positioned on every potential axis. This gives the mechanic specific directions on how much to adjust each tire to get everything back into alignment.
If you get a wheel alignment done, it is worth having tire balancing done as well. If you have uneven wear on your tires, it will cause a problem where the tire does not have the same weight across the entire surface. This is the best way to smooth out your ride since your tires will be getting the benefits of both corrections.
For more information, contact a company like Beyer Supreme Tires.