4 WHEEL ALIGNMENT

At Edmonstone Garage we have top of the range Hunter Hawk Eye four wheel alignment equipment combined with a Hunter RX45 alignment ramp. We have a complete database for all makes and models of vehicle and can carry out both standard manufacture or custom set ups.

What is four wheel alignment?

Wheel alignment is often overlooked and not given proper consideration. Believe it or not it is a process to ensure all four wheels are correctly aligned. You may have heard of it being called wheel tracking before, but both are the same. It’s pretty easy to get your head around, if your tyres aren’t working together then you’re going to get unevenly worn tyres. The benefits of perfectly aligned wheels include straight-line stability, improved cornering performance, improved fuel efficiency and steering wheel returnability. It can also improve the life expectancy of your tyres up to 12,000 miles.

How to Know if You Need a Four Wheel Alignment Service?

There are a few tell-tale signs that you can look out for:

• Unevenly worn tyres (You may notice the outside tread is worn more than the inside)

• Shaky steering

• Steering pulling to one side

Common Causes

Hitting a kerb or speeding over a pothole can be enough to knock your wheel alignment off. It may not be noticeable right away but many knocks and bumps will eventually take their toll. Damage to your suspension elements can also affect your alignment, so if you are having work done to your suspension it is worth adding this service too.

Realistically, you should be having a wheel alignment check done every 6 months or 6000 miles. It only takes around an hour or so to do and we have a comfortable waiting space for you to relax in while the job is done.

How Does Four Wheel Alignment Work?

This is to ensure the direction and angle of each wheel is matching what the car manufacturer has recommended. There are two different settings to check, the toe and camber. Toe relates to the space between the front and the back of each tyre. Most cars have the wheels ever so slightly turned in, around 0.05°. This allows the wheels to turn as efficiently as possible without the tyres dragging on the road. Toe-in means that the front of the tyres are closer to each other than the rear of the same tyres. Toe-out means that the rear of each tyre is closer to each other than the front. Camber is about the angle your tyres are sitting at and it measures the degree of tyre tilt. A positive camber is when the top of the wheel leans out from the centre. A negative camber is the opposite, so where the wheel is leaning into the centre. Usually, you can expect to see a camber of 0.5 – 2°.

How Do We Do Four Wheel Alignment?

• First check all the tyre pressures are correctly set

• Place alignment sensors on each wheel

• The computer system measures all alignment angles

• The computer then shows us what adjustments need to be made as per the manufacturers specifications

Custom Alignments

As a garage we enjoy and participate in drifting where we sponsor a number of top tier drift cars at the highest level of competition in the UK.

Drift cars have undoubtedly the most extreme alignment settings taking things to the extreme. Our knowledge, understanding and expertise is used on every alignment, whether it is a family people carrier, supercar or race car.

We will test drive your vehicle after alignment to ensure that any issues are resolved and provide you with a print out showing the before and after readings, explained to you by our technicians.