Alignment is the last step of several other jobs
Most people think of alignment as its own appointment. It is also the closing step of work that has nothing to do with alignment on the face of it, and skipping it there is where the money goes.
After suspension or steering repair. Replacing a control arm, a tie rod end, a strut or a ball joint changes the geometry. The vehicle leaves the shop with new parts and angles nobody set.
After a collision repair, however minor. Anything that moved a component moved the geometry with it.
After a lift, a leveling kit or a change in ride height. The angles the manufacturer specified assume the vehicle sits where it was designed to sit.
When new tires go on, so the set starts straight rather than spending its first miles correcting an existing fault.
If a vehicle has had any of those done and nobody mentioned alignment, that is the question to ask.
What the three angles do
Toe does most of the tire damage, because a wheel pointing slightly off is dragged sideways for every mile.
Camber wears one edge of a tire and leaves the rest looking healthy.
Caster mostly affects feel: whether the steering self-centers, whether the vehicle wanders, whether it pulls.
A vehicle can feel perfectly normal and still be destroying tires, which is why "it drives fine" is not evidence.
What it cannot do
Fix a worn part. A vehicle that will not hold an alignment has something moving under load, and that is suspension repair, done at this store, with the alignment afterwards.
Fix a vibration. That is balance, or a wheel.
About this store
The Denver store runs seventeen services, carries all nine Purcell tire categories, and is managed by Jake Perry. It also aligns heavy trucks and trailers.
See the national car and light truck alignment page for all 40 locations.