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Unusual tire wear. Look closely at all four of your tires. If one or more of them demonstrate excessive wear on one side, or wear in a cupped, scalloped or diagonal stripe pattern at edges or across the tread, or uneven wear but with "feathered" edges on the treads, an alignment could be needed.
Unusual steering feel. If the steering feels stiffer than it used to, or if the wheel does not return to the center position when released, or if the car feels skittish and like it is riding "on tip-toes", your wheels may be out of alignment. If the steering wheel is cocked to one side when the front wheels are pointing straight ahead, an alignment is almost certainly needed. While driving, if the car wants to pull to one side, tends to wander or weave, or is subject to front end "shimmy" , you should have the alignment checked immediately.
There are three basic wheel angles which determine whether a vehicle is properly aligned and goes where it is pointed. Not every angle applies to every wheel, and not all angles are adjustable on all cars, but the three angles must be set properly for the alignment to be correct: Camber is simply the inward or outward tilt of a wheel compared to a vertical line.
Caster is the degree that the car's steering axis is tilted forward or backward from the vertical as viewed from the side of the car.
Toe refers to the directions in which two wheels point relative to each other. "Toe-in" means the wheels point toward each other in a "pigeon-toed" stance; toe-out means the wheels point away from each other.
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