5 Signs Your Vehicle Needs a Wheel Alignment

1. Your Car Pulls to One Side

On a flat, straight road, your car should track straight with your hands relaxed on the wheel. If you consistently feel it drifting left or right and have to correct for it, that's one of the clearest signs your alignment is off.

2. Uneven or Rapid Tread Wear

Run a hand across each tire's tread, from the inner to the outer edge. If one side feels noticeably more worn than the other, or the wear pattern looks choppy rather than even, alignment is one of the most common causes.

3. An Off-Center Steering Wheel

When you're driving straight, your steering wheel's logo or spokes should sit level. If it's noticeably tilted while you're tracking straight ahead, your wheels are pointed in a slightly different direction than your steering wheel suggests — a classic alignment symptom.

4. Vibration in the Steering Wheel

A shaking or vibrating steering wheel is often blamed on balancing, and sometimes that's correct — but it can also point to an alignment issue, especially if the vibration gets worse at higher speeds.

5. Squealing Tires on Turns

A misaligned wheel can ride at a slightly different angle than it should, causing part of the tire to scrub against the road during turns. That scrubbing is what produces the squeal — and it wears down tread even faster than normal driving.

What Causes Misalignment — and How Often to Check

Alignment shifts from everyday driving: potholes (Ontario has no shortage), curb hits while parking, and normal wear on suspension components over tens of thousands of kilometres. As a rule, have your alignment checked once a year or immediately after hitting a significant pothole or curb — it's a lot cheaper than replacing a set of tires years early because of uneven wear.

Worth knowing: we don't perform wheel alignments in-house. What we can do is check your tread wear and wheel balance and tell you honestly whether what you're feeling sounds like an alignment issue — if it is, you'll know to have that looked at elsewhere before it costs you a set of tires.