I need your opinion on how often should we get an alignment?

I know for a fact that the regular maintenance for an alignment is at least once a year or every 10-12k miles.

My friend told me that for a lowered car it should be every 6k miles.

What do you think?

 

6k? nahh

depending on the roads in your area every 10-15k is about right.

 

...

you get an alignment as often as you need to.

the way you really tell if you need an alignment is if your start getting unusual tire wear or your steering wheel gets way off center.

 

^^^I can never tell if I'm getting uneven tire wear on my tires. I know my steering wheel is a little off thou.

Freaking roads in VA just sucks with pot holes and such on almost every corner. Not mentioning the flying debris coming from other cars and such.

I'm probably off by a bit but when getting an alignment, do most shops set it by factory setting based on their computer or by calculating based on how your wheels are on the ground?

 

^^^ the machine will read the angles and measurements by the sensors they install onto your wheels. They'll set it based on what the machine says. also- You can always tell them to set all adjustable settings to the nominal (center of the range) setting. That'll give you the factory specification, not "within spec".. maxed out can still be "within specs" but not right.

usually the rule is wear "feathering" on the tires is the first you'll see, or the car is pulling, the steering feels loose. that sort of thing.

usually it's about once a year to get an alignment, more if you're hitting pot holes (big ones).

 

w=every 6000 miles?