A good friend came to me complaining about the stability of her Honda CR-V in the rain and during her long distance drives (she travels a lot from state to state). Being a little lazy, I told her to visit her regular tire shop to check her tires and alignment as it has been raining quite often the past 3 months. She did, and after paying for the work done at this franchised tire shop she continued to drive her SUV outstation. After a few times of being slightly out of control during her drives outstation she kept complaining to me about her handling and so I did the right thing by visiting her and inspecting her CR-V.
I was shocked to see how her rear tyres had worn badly from the inside and the franchised tyre shop had obviously not done anything but wipe on some shiny tyre shine on her 4 tyres to show they have completed their work.
This could have resulted in a fatal incident if she had pushed her SUV harder along the highway and it was lucky that we went and inspected it and not been lazy again about it.
We brought her to our regular trusted tyre shop (which is quite far from where she lives) and our tyre sifu shook his head when seeing the rear tyre. This is not a tyre issue, but an issue with the previous franchised tyre shop who did not do their job and just collected a fee from the CR-V owner who like many car owners sit in the air-conditioned waiting room, sipping on a free hot beverage and enjoying the free wi-fi.
Our tyre sifu replaced both her rear tyres and after a few minutes on the road she could already feel better steering response and a better ride. Safety on the road starts with your tyres and her previous tyre shop DID NOT do any work at all. It has been two weeks and she is very happy with her handling.
NOTE: Imagine that your feet are tyres. Try walking with toes pointed out and then with toes pointed in. Now apply this to the front tyres of your vehicle. The wheels must ideally be parallel. The distance between the leading edge and the trailing edge of your front tyres must be the same. If it is then the wheels have a “zero toe”. If the front the edges are closer than the rear edges, then it’s a toe-in and if they are far apart then it’s a “toe-out”. These can cause severe uneven wear to tyres.
Toe problems are the most critical wheel alignment issues and they cause severe tyre problems. Replacing tyres doesn’t resolve the problem unless the cause for misalignment is identified and fixed and toe is set to manufacturer specifications.
So, now you know and you can share this with your family and friends.
Question about wheel alignments. In older cars I remember wheel alignments being necessary for all four wheels. But in my latest cars, the wheel alignment guy tells me only the front two wheels need to be aligned? Is this normal or something wrong here?
Thanks
Front wheel drive cars need front alignment and all wheel need all wheels done.