Wheel Alignments

Hank's Tire performs wheel alignments for customers throughout Woodland Hills, CA, Calabasas, CA, Encino, CA, and surrounding areas. Your vehicle's wheel alignment plays a role in tire longevity, which is why it's recommended to have your alignment checked whenever you install new tires.

What is a Wheel Alignment?

Alignment describes the way the tires and wheels are angled on your vehicle. There are three angles critical to an alignment:

• Toe: Wheels can be toe-in (wears tires on outside) or toe-out (wears tires on inside). Depending on your vehicle, one option will wear tires less than the other. For example, toe-in alignments are performed to compensate for friction that occurs while driving and pushes wheels apart. However, toe-out is the better choice on some vehicles, like many old front-wheel drives, because they were built in a way where the wheels pulled inward.
• Camber: Camber describes how your tires and wheels lean relative to being straight. There are two types of camber, negative and positive. With negative camber, the tire tilts in toward the vehicle. With positive camber, the tire tilts away from the vehicle. Like toe, your ideal camber depends on your vehicle and how you drive it, as well as road conditions. Most vehicles should have some camber to compensate for turns.
• Caster: Caster is the angle between the upper ball joint and the lower ball joint. The angle tilt can be forward (negative caster) or rearward (positive caster) and plays an important role in handling. Incorrect caster requires drivers to exert more effort steering and increases the rate of wear on tires.

When a vehicle is out of alignment, you may experience issues with handling in addition to irregular tire wear. The next time you install tires, ask for an alignment inspection so you can make any corrections at the time of installation. If you're not sure when your last alignment was, or you need an alignment repair, give us a call to schedule an appointment.

At Hank's Tire, we can align your tires and wheels to optimal angles for your make and model.

What is Road Force Balancing?

A regular tire balancer measures static and dynamic imbalances that cause a tire to vibrate or shimmy. While a regular tire balancer can correct weight distribution problems within the tire/wheel assembly, it isn't designed to locate other causes of vibration.

The Hunter Road Force Balancer simulates driving conditions, like the weight of the vehicle on the tire and wheel while in motion. The system detects weight imbalance along with other causes of vibration that a regular wheel and tire balancer misses.

We use the Hunter Road Force Balancer to identify the position and amount of imbalance in your car or light truck tire and wheel assemblies.

With Hank's Tire, maximize the life of your tires with expert alignments and professional wheel balancing with the Hunter Road Force Balancer.

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Alignments and Balancing