there is a very real chance an alignment shop will make your alignment worse.
I respectfully disagree.
The going assumption is that the shop is technically profficient and bears integrity.
Step I of Alignment check: Quick test Drive
Step II: Vehicle on lift and tie-rods, shocks, struts, ball joints, etc checked
Step III: LED heads are placed on each tire and steering turned to figure pre-adjustment values.
So there is NO ADJUSTMENT made during the check.
How can this ruin the vehicles alignment.
The only way this would happen is if the Alignment geometries were worse after adjustment then pre-adjustment angles.
I have never had a situation where a customer vehicle was worse off.
Again it comes down to shop integrity, the skill level of the technician, and hwo much of a PIA the vehicle is to work with (MB, Corvettes, rusted out ones etc)
Finally, the Tire manafacturers reccommend it as well.
There is Zero point waiting for that .06 degrees of or so will manifest into toe wear and then having it aligned.
One can have a toe problem with zero apparent wear for a few thousand miles and perfect steering.
The avoid the Alignmnet idea is a grave fallacy which kills innocent tires and also cost the rubber companies big $$$ in false warranty claims.
Trust me, I am at the point where i can walk down main street and just point to bad alignment...sadly on an overwhelming majority of the street driven vehicles.
I am like "toe," "caster," etc...then again I have come to measure a man not by his deed but by how well he maintains his car.