Can You Get An Alignment Before New Tires?

Mar 26, 2021

The life of your vehicle’s tires can be shortened by a number of factors, including worn suspension and steering parts, your driving habits, the type of road surfaces you drive on, and your vehicle’s alignment. Most tire dealers recommend checking the alignment regularly, especially if you buy new tires, but should you get your tires changed before you get an alignment on your vehicle?

What Is an Alignment?

Unless you are an auto technician, you may not understand what the term alignment means and how an alignment affects your vehicle. To better understand whether you should have the vehicle’s alignment completed before or after you replace the tires, take a look at the process.
Your vehicle’s steering and suspension consist of several parts that must all be in good condition and properly aligned to make sure your vehicle handles properly and the tires wear evenly. These parts typically include the following:

Struts or shock absorbers
Steering rack and pinion or steering linkages and steering gear
Ball joints
Control arms
Tires and wheels

When your vehicle rolls off the production line, these items are in perfect alignment with each other using a computerized, laser-guided alignment machine. However, potholes, mileage, collisions, and many other issues can cause these parts on your vehicle to become out of alignment. While a vehicle with a less-than-perfect alignment typically promotes tire wear, worn tires rarely, if ever, cause your vehicle to become out of alignment.

Which Comes First: New Tires or Alignment?

The central question remains: Should you have your tires changed before or after a vehicle alignment? Naturally, a certain amount of debate surrounds this question. Some technicians may tell you that worn tires, especially those with significant alignment wear, can have an effect on the vehicle’s alignment.
Most experts suggest that the only effect worn tires are likely to have is a change to the vehicle’s ride height which, given today’s steering and suspension design, is unlikely to have an effect on the alignment. So, should you complete an alignment before you install new tires or should you wait until the new tires are on the vehicle?

Answers About Alignments

Up until the 1980s, most vehicles had three different angles that could be adjusted at the front end. These angles include the following:

Toe in and toe out, terms referring to whether the front of the tires point in or out, like pigeon toes or splayed feet
Camber, a term describing whether the top of the tire tilts toward the center of the vehicle or away from it
Caster, a term referring to an imaginary line that extends vertically from the ground up through the wheel’s center

Each one of these angles plays an important role in how well your vehicle handles, but only camber and toe affect tire wear.
With older vehicles from this period, drivers may have seen better results by replacing their tires before making an alignment, as excessive wear may have affected the camber measurement. However, most of today’s cars feature a fixed front end where camber and caster levels become set at the factory and cannot be adjusted, leaving only the toe-in and toe-out levels for adjustments.

With such limited adjustments, whether your tires are older and show signs of wear should have limited, if any, effect on your vehicle’s alignment. However, you can use the wear showing on the tires to help you decide whether you should take your vehicle to an auto technician to receive an alignment. Be sure to check your tires on a regular basis for correct tire pressure and for any visible signs of wear.

Other Factors Affecting Tire Wear and the Final Answer

While your vehicle’s alignment can, and often does, play a major role in how well or poorly the tires wear, other factors can also cause similar issues. One of the most common issues concerns worn or damaged steering and suspension parts. These parts include all moving and stationary steering parts, shocks, struts, and springs. Before you invest in either a new set of tires or an alignment for your vehicle, you might be better off having a certified technician inspect your vehicle’s steering and suspension for you.

Yes, you can get an alignment before buying new tires. It doesn’t matter whether you get your alignment before or after having your new tires put on. Most experts agree that the only effect worn tires have on your alignment is a change to the vehicle’s ride height which, given today’s steering and suspension design, should be negligible.

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