Wheel alignment is a practice of positioning the wheels to be in the right angular position with the suspension and the ground, and it is essential in control of the vehicle and reduction of tire life. Most of the front end angles are found as camber, caster and toe-in, but camber and caster are normally set during factory but verified during wear and damage, and the only adjustable angle at the front is the toe-in. There are no adjustable angles in the rear wheels in 2WD models, but rear toe-in should be identical on each side, and camber is checked to determine the presence of axes bent off. In all-wheel drive models, camber and toe-in can be adjusted, with camber being set by the lower
Control Arm-to-rear knuckle bolt, and toe-in by the track rod-to-subframe bolt, both using eccentric washers. Proper wheel alignment is a process that demands special equipment and skills and as such, it is best to have a competent technician perform the operation. Learning the fundamentals of wheel alignment would help in understanding the language of service providers. The inward angle of the wheels is referred to as toe-in and these are kept at the same level, whereas the angle of the wheels compared to vertical is referred to as camber which will impact the tires in contact with the road. Caster refers to the inclination of the front steering axis with positive caster tilt being towards the rear and negative caster tilt being towards the front.