What Is Tramlining And How To Avoid It?

When vehicle follows road and not steering, it is known as tramlining

When you are driving a car, you often notice that at times the car just pulls to one of the sides of the road without any steering input from your side. For such cars, you need to keep adjusting steering to maintain them in a straight line. This mostly happens on rough roads. The tendency of your vehicle to follow road contours instead of the steering input is known as tramlining.

We are sure that you must have encountered tramlining more often than not as our roads are mostly studded with ruts, contours, imperfections, potholes, etc. It may not be a concern at low speeds but at high speeds, it is dangerous.

Reasons for Tramlining

Misaligned wheels

The most common source of tramlining has been misaligned wheels. So, wheel alignment is not only limited to curbing the uneven wear of your tyres but also to keep the handling of the car intact. More or less camber (the angle of wheels from its axis) exerts uneven pressure on tyres leading to handling troubles.

Suspension system

The age of suspension can be noticed if it starts giving you excess of body roll. This roll gives directional force to the tyres which may result in tramlining.

Over-inflation of tyres

Getting the tyres over inflated means they expand and loose the character of absorbing road undulation effects. This leads to tramlining.

Alteration in wheelbase

Any change in the overall settings of the wheelbase is likely to raise the chances of tramlining. As the wheelbase increases, the probabilities of tramlining increases too. For instance, if you upsized your vehicle tyre to a thicker tyre for better handling, the tramlining effect may bug you very often.

How to avoid it?

Working on the ‘Prevention is better than cure’ treatment, you need to take simple routine efforts to get rid of tramlining.

• Once you have identified tramlining, do not ignore and get a professional help.
• Get your wheels aligned routinely. A period of every 6-12 months is recommended.
• Avoid going in for any mod jobs especially to increase wheelbase
• Always keep your car’s tyre pressure at the recommended tyre pressure. It should not be over inflated or under inflated at any point.
• Always, get your vehicle’s suspension system checked whenever you encounter any tyre related issues.