Can Wheel Alignment issues cause Tramlining?

[Marco]

Hey everyone, I swapped out my Winter Tyres (Marangoni Meteo) not too long ago and put my Summer Tyres (Bridgestone Potenza) back on. As soon as I did this I noticed the Tramlining was quite bad. To be honest, I can't remember if it was this bad before I took the Summer tyres off as I had only had the car for a few months at that point and so I have done more mileage on Winter Tyres.

My two questions are:

1) Is it possible that the make of tyre can make such a big difference to Tramlining? (Hardly noticed any with my winter tyres).
2) Is it possible that the Alignment is out and causing this? It should not be as I paid Kwik Fit to do Alignment as well when they put my Summer Tyres on but they don't give an Alignment Report (which I'm confused about as I thought a proper Wheel Alignment comes with a report of the "before" and "after" settings).

Thanks!
Marco

PS I don't have RFT's.....

 

[gannet]

Hey everyone, I swapped out my Winter Tyres (Marangoni Meteo) not too long ago and put my Summer Tyres (Bridgestone Potenza) back on. As soon as I did this I noticed the Tramlining was quite bad. To be honest, I can't remember if it was this bad before I took the Summer tyres off as I had only had the car for a few months at that point and so I have done more mileage on Winter Tyres.

My two questions are:

1) Is it possible that the make of tyre can make such a big difference to Tramlining? (Hardly noticed any with my winter tyres).
2) Is it possible that the Alignment is out and causing this? It should not be as I paid Kwik Fit to do Alignment as well when they put my Summer Tyres on but they don't give an Alignment Report (which I'm confused about as I thought a proper Wheel Alignment comes with a report of the "before" and "after" settings).

Thanks!
Marco

PS I don't have RFT's.....

1) yes they can - I change my RFT bridgestone's for RFT Michelin's and tramlining simply disappeared...
2) I seriously doubt Kwik-fit have the right equipment to properly alignment a zed, probably just took your money and sent you away

 

[Marco]

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised. I actually watched them the previous time they did the alignment and well, I don't think its a proper alignment, as like you say they don't seem to have the correct equipment to do that. But they did at least do something, this time I'm not sure as like you said, I left the car there then collected it.

 

[Maniac]

If the e85/86 has servotronic steering like my e89, they definitely can't do it because you need to reset the electronics on the steering at the same time as doing the alignment... (which equals specialist or stealer, or put another way, fookin expensive)

 

[lacroupade]

Can't speak for the E89 but the E85 is basically a two-seater on a 3-series platform....a car that outsells all of its competition and is as common as muck, so the idea that major high street tyre suppliers can't do a reasonably effective alignment check is surely a bit of an exaggeration?

And if the centralisation of the steering wheel isn't disturbed (and the first thing the tester does is centralise the steering wheel) than I can't see the electronics need resetting, but what do I know... :?

 

[bcworkz]

E89 and E85 steering are certainly not the same. E89 owners, consider yourselves lucky. Not to say that there wouldn't be similar electronic measures during alignment. However, I did read through the alignment procedures in TIS a while back and don't recall anything about electronic reset or anything. Then again, memory's not what it used to be, so I could be wrong on this.