Tire Alignment vs. Balance: What’s the Difference?

Tire balance and alignment are both vital for keeping your car riding smoothly, preventing excessive tire wear, and keeping you safe by helping your tires stay in contact with the road. This is important because the section of tire that actually touches the road, called the contact patch or footprint, isn’t much larger than the palm of your hand.

Unless you are in-tune with your vehicle, you might not notice that one or the other is off, unless the problem is severe.  “Some drivers might mistake a bumpier ride or a car that’s pulling to one side more than the other as reactions to road conditions, but in reality both can be signs of imbalanced or misaligned tires,” says Duane “Doc” Watson, a technical trainer at Bosch Mobility Aftermarket.

Even though tire/wheel balancing and alignment services complement each other, they are technically separate. However, most repair shops will do them both at once.

Here’s more about how tire balance and alignment works, and how to tell if yours need adjusting.

Note: When a tire (the rubber part) is mounted on a wheel (the steel part), it’s called a tire/wheel assembly.

What is Tire Alignment?

A tire alignment, also known as a “front-end” or “four-wheel alignment” on cars with independent rear suspension, involves adjusting the angles of the suspension system. In this procedure, there are no adjustments to the tires/wheels themselves.

“Vehicles are designed to have the tires aiming basically straight ahead and be vertical,” says Chris “Moose” Pyle, an auto mechanic exert with JustAnswer.com. “When suspension and steering parts wear, out or when you clobber a pothole or hit a curb, you likely need an alignment to get the tires rolling perfectly again. This will help with the feel and it will make the tires last their longest.”

That’s because an out-of-alignment suspension causes excess wear on either edge of a tire. When I was a teacher, I illustrated this for my students with a tapered coffee cup.  When I rolled the cup on a table, it would go in a circle, demonstrating the way car pulls to one side of the road when out of alignment.

Properly aligned tires ensure your suspension is precisely, geometrically positioned so your tires all point in the same direction. Called “tracking,” it keeps the tires/wheels firmly planted on the pavement and going straight. That increases tread life and driving enjoyment.

The three common alignment angles are:

• Camber: The inward or outward tilt of the wheel when viewed from the front of the car. Camber distributes the entire load of a vehicle across the tread of a tire. Out of spec camber places the load on only one side of a tire, resulting in premature wear on that side.
• Toe-in/toe-out measurements: The angle/distance between the front of the tires on the same axle when looking at the vehicle from above. When toe-in/toe-out is out of spec, it affects tire wear and handling when going straight or turning.
• Caster: The tilt or angle of the tire/wheel assembly toward (positive) or away (negative) from the steering wheel. Caster doesn’t affect tire wear but impacts handling and steering. After turning, the steering wheel should easily return to the centered position without driver assistance.

Even normal driving on perfect roads causes tire wear. And suspension parts that are constantly moving, ultimately weakening and wearing out, affect a vehicle’s wheel alignment. That’s why even if your tires are wearing well and your car seems to be driving fine, a tire alignment should be part of your annual maintenance service.

Signs You Need a Tire Alignment

Assuming your tires are inflated to the correct air pressure, your vehicle probably needs a wheel alignment when:

• Your car keeps drifting or pulling to one side of the road.
• You see excessive, abnormal or uneven tread wear, or feather edging across the entire tread face.
• Your tires squeal or squeak when driving or cornering.
• The steering wheel feels “off-center.”
• Your steering wheel vibrates, or your car pulls to one side when accelerating from a stop.
• You notice excess side-to-side steering wheel play

“If you notice any of the above interfering with business as usual, it’s best practice to take your car in and have a professional repair tech get to the bottom of the problem,” says Watson.

What Is Tire Balancing?

Anything round that spins, like tires and wheels, must be “balanced” or it will vibrate. Wheel balancing corrects this in the tire/wheel assembly.

“Wheels and tires are round but they are not perfect, so there are areas that are heavy and light,” says Pyle. “A wheel balancing machine spins a mounted tire on a rim to find those heavy spots so you can add weights on the opposite side. This reduces vibrations at highway speeds.”

Being out-of-balance can be annoying, plus damage tires and shorten their life.

To explain wheel balancing to my students, I taped flat washers to a basketball. When rolling the ball, it would “bounce” up and down every time the washers hit the floor, indicating the heavy spot of the ball.

Wheel balancing involves spinning a tire and wheel assembly with a piece of equipment cleverly called a wheel balancer, operated by a trained technician. The most common types of wheel balancing are dynamic and match-balancing.

Dynamic balancing identifies a tire/wheel’s heaviest point and shows where wheel weights need to be installed. These counteract tire imbalance, eliminating vibrations and tire hop.

Match, or road force, balancing identifies the tire’s low and wheel’s high point. To provide the smoothest ride, the technician will loosen the tire from the wheel and line up the two points.

Signs Your Tires Need Balancing

• You feel vibrations while driving. If the front tires are out of balance, the vibrations telescope up through the steering wheel. The seats or floorboards will pulsate and the mirrors might be bouncing or look blurry if the rear tires/wheel are out of balance.
• You see bald spots on the edge or middle of the tire tread.
• You hear rumbling, growling or thumping noises from the tires.
• You repair a tire with an internal patch or plug.

“It can be tricky to tell the difference between signs your tires need alignment and signs they need balancing,” says Watson. “The telltale sign with imbalanced tires is often unusual vibrations, be it in your steering wheel, your seats or under your floorboard; but this can also mean your tires are misaligned.”

To extend the life of your tires, provide better handling and braking, a smoother ride and increased fuel economy, be sure to rotate and balance your tires and wheels every 6,000 to 8,000 miles as part of your regular maintenance routine.

About the Experts

• Duane “Doc” Watson is a technical trainer at Bosch Mobility Aftermarket. He has more than 45 years of experience in automotive repair, has trained thousands of technicians and earned many industry awards, including Chevrolet Technician of the Year and Buick Service Master of the Year.
• Chris “Moose” Pyle is a master-certified technician with 20-plus years of automotive experience. He has also worked as an expert for JustAnswer.com since 2006, where he answers hundreds of car maintenance and repair questions a day.