How to Tell if Your Car Needs an Alignment

Wheel alignment. How to tell if your car needs an alignment, DIY with Scotty Kilmer. How to do an alignment. Car alignment explained and why you shouldn't do a wheel alignment yourself. Bad alignment and uneven tire wear symptoms. Proper alignment requires expensive computerized equipment that most people don't have, so trying a DIY wheel alignment often doesn't end well. DIY car repair with Scotty Kilmer, an auto mechanic for the last 50 years.

Thanks for watching!

⬇️Scotty’s Top DIY Tools:

⬇️Things used in this video:
1. Common Sense

🛠Check out my Garage to see what I use every day and highly recommend:

Scotty on Social:

This is the people's automotive channel! Learn how to fix your car and how it works. Get a chance to show off your own car on Sundays. Or show off your own car mod on Wednesdays. Tool giveaways every Monday to help you with your own car projects. Or enter your own DIY car fix to compete in the best fix of the week contest every Thursday. We have a new video every day! I've been an auto mechanic for the past 50 years and I'm here to share my knowledge with you.

Here's our weekly video schedule:
Monday: Tool giveaway
Tuesday: Auto repair video
Wednesday: Viewers car mod show off
Thursday: The Best Fix of the Week Contest AND Live podcast, car question and answer
Friday: Auto repair video
Saturday: Second Live podcast, car question and answer
Sunday: Viewers car show off

Scotty Kilmer is a participant in the Amazon Influencer Program.
#savagescotty

[scottykilmer]

⬇️Scotty’s Top DIY Tools:


🛠Check out my Garage to see what I use every day and highly recommend:


Scotty on Social:

[SykeThrone]

I don't know anything about cars. But this channel made me a man.

[tomsmales]

You know I find it pretty sad Scotty, that anybody could even not like what you're doing.. your taking time out of your life to help people understand about the vehicles thank you very much for your time..

[lonelymtbrider]

I've done the alignment on my own car using basically just strings and a tape measure and some ingenuity. When checked later at a garage it was almost perfect, well within spec. Mechanics always say that you need insane precision, lasers etc, but in fact on a 17" rim the difference of 1 degree is a whopping 8 mm between front and rear edge of the rim...Meaning it's absolutely doable for a skilled home mechanic.

[opl]

No rust anywhere. Must be nice to live down south.

[HunterAtheist]

I love the history segments. It's like sitting in your uncle's lap as a child and listening to Uncle Scotty tell you about how he had to work on cars in the dead of winter during blizzards, year round. LOL

Scotty, you are the man! Seriously consider making car history videos just like your segments, but a little more in depth, and maybe with a whiteboard or other visual aids. I really enjoy your story telling style.

[milesvoss]

The more of your videos I watch Scotty, the more my fear of the unknown diminishes about my vehicle, Scotty thank you for your uploads and I really believe you deserve all your success.

[atlys]

I only came here to learn more about alignments and now I'm subbed because Scotty's such a fun guy to watch 🤣

[wvadam]

Scotty I did a front toe alignment years ago with a measuring tape and got it "good enough" but after seeing this informative video I will be using a pro alignment shop this time. Thank you for making these videos as you are really helping a lot of people with your expertise.

[stevetrent]

Well, I never, ever, question anything that Scotty says. Scotty is the "Mechanic King" of the entire automotive world! Thank you Scotty for all your simply stated and clear to understand help that you share with everyone! You have a special talent of explaining complex things in a way that a small child can understand! I salute you!!!

[Kerry]

Now I can confidently go to a garage and request if my van needs an alignment. I hate not understanding car mechanic terminology. You rock Scotty!!

[ytjg]

Great content once again! Too often people are scammed into 'needing' an alignment. One time had a NTB location try to fudge the inspection results. Vehicle was perfectly aligned when it went in for tires. Watched the guys try to play around with the steering wheel to make the printout appear the vehicle was severely out of alignment. The problem with their scam was that the toe was out exactly the same amount on both sides (one positive and one negative), with the wheels both pointing left. If that truly was the case, then either the vehicle would have pulled severely to one side with the steering wheel centered or would have driven straight with the steering wheel severely off center. Just a SCAM to try to get me to spend $80 on something that wasn't needed. Put 70, 000 miles on those tires and they wore perfectly. Seems to be getting harder to find reputable shops these days. Knowledge is power!

[stevenhinkle]

I do my toe alignments myself by guessing and honestly, I've never had this method fail me. I can't condone it of course because you have to be super in-tune with what your wheels are doing and how your car is behaving in order to get the adjustment close. For example, My car had steering that was drifting to the left at high speed and at low speed, the steering was very light to the left but harder turning to the right. Also at low parking lot speeds, it would turn light to the left, then you could let go of the steering wheel and it would continue to turn itself harder to the left until it reached full lock turning left. These symptoms led me to believe that the left wheel tie rod needed to be adjusted in a way that turns the left wheel to the right. ( not sure if that's positive or negative toe) Either way, it worked and my car steers great now.

[theequeenbeast]

So many of your videos helped me, your so clear and concise. Being a female with so many restrictions in my life when it came to cars made a world of a difference to come across his channel.

[eppyz]

My Dad has used the tape measure way for decades and has never had an issue. Like Scotty said most adjustment is needed for toe.. and the tape measure way works for that. If you have a camber issue? Then the tape measure won't work. You can usually tell by how your tire is wearing. Now my Dad was in the Body Shop Biz for MANY years and is fairly proficient at doing alignments in this fashion.

[chucke]

The pros always say " this was the best we can do" and its not perfect but they charge you 100%.lol

[carlosdavis]

Scotty Kilmer. You are the angel we don't deserve

[pjosephsmith]

Scotty confuses me
He sounds like an enthusiastic use car dealer, but he's helpful as hell and actually saves us money with free advise he doesn't hide facts about.
If you're reading this, thanks.

[kruffo]

Love when i find a good youtube channel. No fluff, just rapid fire info and good edits. I went through about 10 channels of guys just yapping on.

[JesusisLORD]

If you get an alignment check, most places are going to find a "problem" with the alignment... whether you have one or not.