The wheels of off-roading trucks take a beating as the trucks traverse rocks, ditches and uneven terrain, and these wheels often become misaligned. If you have an off-roading truck, here's how getting your truck's wheels aligned can help the truck.
Improve Fuel Efficiency on the Road
When wheels are misaligned and not pointing in the same direction, they pull your truck in slightly different directions. This reduces gas mileage, as the tires must struggle against each other to move your truck forward.
A wheel alignment will straighten your truck's tires so that they all point in the same direction and don't have to fight each other. This will yield an increase in fuel efficiency, saving you money on gas every time you drive.
The fuel savings that an alignment provides while you're off-roading could be minimal because off-roading is typically done at slow speeds. You'll see a substantial improvement in on-road fuel efficiency, though, because on-road driving involves higher speeds that require more fuel.
Reduce Wear on the Tires
When wheels point in different directions and fight against one another, the resistance also creates excess wear on the tires. In particular, tires can wear down in a non-normal pattern. Depending on what the particular misalignment issue is, your truck's tires might show the following:
The type of wear might help show what kind of misalignment is present, but a computer must be used to calculate the exact misalignment and correction that's needed. Wheel alignments are too precise to do solely by sight.
Preventing premature wear is a good thing to do no matter what vehicle you drive, but it's especially important if you own a truck. Off-roading truck tires are more expensive than other tires, so you'll want to do whatever you can to make sure you get to use their full life span.
Increase Precision Off the Road
While most off-roading doesn't require a perfectly in-tune truck, some maneuvers do require you to know precisely where the wheels will go. When navigating treacherous rock paths, steep slopes and deep ditches where the truck straddles a crevice, your truck's tires need to go directly where you steer them.
If you participate in this type of highly advanced off-roading, your truck's tires should be aligned regularly or even before every extreme outing so that you're as safe as possible when on (or off) the trail.
To learn more, contact a resource like D Wells Automotive Service.