theoryguy3

Hi,

I had my right front tire replaced due to a road nail. Now when I went for my 10,000 mile service they told me that I need a wheel alignment. My friend told me that whenever you replace a tire you always have to do a wheel alignment. Does anybody know if this is true?

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

did your tire wear unevenly? If youre tires wore evenly there is no need to get an alignment with new tires, If they were wearing on the edges then you need an alignment

dojoman

iTrader: (5)

It depends on how you drive and road conditions. I've had alignment done at 9k miles. It was pulling to one side, I probably hit a pot hole or something.

theoryguy3

Went down to a few shops and they all told me as soon as you replace a tire for a brand new one it throws out the alignments for that tire

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

they are BSing you. If youre not experiencing uneven tire wear or off center wheel, you dont need an alignment

ancpratt

When replacing tires, you'll for sure need to get them balanced but you do NOT, as the other posters have mentioned, need a wheel alignment. Like they have said, you only need an alignment if your tread wear is uneven. That's a visual check you can do easily on your own, before you take the car in for the new tire.

JGard18

OK, I need some help here. Left Right front tire? Which one?

And wtf is wind mail?

Finally, ideally you would replace all tires at the same time, or at least in pairs on this car. But unless you swapped out any suspension component, you do not need an alignment.

theoryguy3

Didn't know about having to get a replacement tire balanced, though I would think my dealer would have done that when the put on the replacement tire. A buddy of mine told me to go to Firestone and do their lifetime wheel alignment for $170, which is fine.

theoryguy3

That unfortunately is my quirky speech to text software . It's the right front tire and it was a road nail that caused it.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

anytime you mount a tire you have to balance it, even if youre remounting the same tire

theoryguy3

Just for my own info, I thought the balancing rule applies when you have like tire sizes of all four wheel? Since the front and rear tires are different sizes, can you still balance the tire when you replace it?

JGard18

The balancing of a tire is because a tire isn't perfectly even all around. Neither is a wheel. So if you spin a wheel and/or tire on a single point, without balancing, you'll see that it stops spinning at the same point every time. There's a heavy spot and a light spot. Balancing removes those heavy and light spots so the spinning action is smooth.

If you ever drove a car with a wheel and tire that were not balanced, you would feel it, and it'd feel like the car is going to shake apart.

But since every single tire is different, as is every wheel, any time you put a new tire onto any wheel, you MUST get it balanced properly.