The way your vehicle requires regular maintenance service to perform at an optimum rate, the same way your wheels need proper care. Wheel Alignment and wheel balancing are the two main aspects of wheels.

The process of adjusting your wheel’s angles and adjustment of a car’s suspension is called Wheel Alignment. The Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) give you the wheel alignment specifications when they sell the vehicle. Wheel Alignment is necessary as it affects your car’s performance to a great extent. The moment you feel that the vehicle starts to pull on one side of the road, you must check the Wheel Alignment. Misaligned wheels also lead to vibrations and noisy rides. 

A car with misaligned wheels should be repaired by adjusting the angles. The three-wheel alignment angles are:

Camber angle: It is the inward or outward angle of the wheels when you view them from the front side. The excessively inward angle is called negative camber and extremely outward one is called positive camber. They need to be adjusted otherwise the performance of the vehicle depletes.

Toe angle: The extent to which your tyres turn inward or outward when viewed from above is called the Toe angle. When the wheels bend excessively inwards it is called Toe-in alignment and too much bending towards the outer side is called Toe-out alignment.

Castor angle: When viewed from the side, the angle of the steering axis is called the castor angle. It helps in balancing and provides stability while cornering. A positive castor tilts towards the driver and a negative one tilts towards the vehicle. 

The most common causes of wheel alignment are:

• Suspension component wear
• Hitting potholes while driving at high speed
• Damage caused after hitting an obstacle
• Excessive pressure on shocks and springs

The moment you notice that the Wheel angles of your vehicle are not proper, it is advised that you take it to a certified service centre and get the Wheel Alignment done. 

The process of evenly balancing the weight of the tyres reading and wheels is called Wheel Balancing. Wheel balancing should be done every time the wheels are first mounted on a vehicle with new tyres. It is done so that the wheels spin perfectly at high speeds. 

Wheel Balancing protects your tyres from prematurely wearing out. Imbalanced wheels can also lead to uneven tyre wear. This will force you to buy another pair without getting the money-value from the previous ones. 

It is easy to balance the imbalanced tyres but one should be able to detect this problem soon. As your wheels and tyres get old, they start to get imbalanced. 

• Vibrations in Audi alloys wheels signify imbalanced wheels.
• Wheel balancing should be done every 5,000 miles.
• The tyres start to wear out.
• New tyres are bought.