Trailer Alignment in Boise, ID

A trailer carrying machines is loaded with concentrated weight, often placed by whoever is driving the machine on, and it is driven onto ground that was never meant to be a loading area.

Three things follow. Load placement varies trip to trip, so the stresses are never the same twice. Machines being driven on and off deliver impacts through the deck into the frame and axles. Ramps dropped on uneven ground twist the back end.

None of it is visible. What is visible, eventually, is one tire position being replaced far more often than the others.

Axle alignment to the kingpin or coupling, the relationship between axles on a tandem or tri-axle, and the suspension and mounting hardware holding it together.

This store also aligns heavy trucks. Measuring the combination rather than one end of it is the only way to establish which is responsible when a unit tracks badly.

Start with the tires that keep getting replaced. A trailer running out of line produces a wear signature that is opposite side to side on an axle: one edge going down on the left, the other edge going down on the right.

Then watch it work. A loaded trailer followed on a straight road shows an offset if it has one, and a route whose fuel figures have drifted with no change of load or driver is a trailer being dragged slightly sideways for every mile of it.

What will not tell you is the driver, because a trailer out of line transmits very little forward.

A trailer position scrubbed away on one shoulder will not pass at the plant, and the Purcell retread plant is on this road. Trailer casings retread well when they wear evenly, so an aligned trailer keeps feeding the program and a misaligned one quietly stops. See retreading.

The Boise store carries trailer tires and every other Purcell category, runs sixteen services, and is managed by Tyrel Perkins. Idaho Falls Commercial and Twin Falls also align trailers.

See the national trailer alignment page for all 36 locations.