Mechanically speaking, what happens when a cars alignment is off? Why is it designed to misalign to begin with?
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Common terms
Caster – the angle of the steering axis
Camber – the inward/outward tilt of the wheel
Toe – the the left/right angle of the wheel (typically thought of as when both front wheels face slightly towards each other or away from each other, think of it like being cross-eyed, this is the most common issue and is the one responsible for pulling to the left or the right while moving straight)
There are also other forms of alignment that are only important if you do it for a living such as having all four wheels parallel with each other but not the body of the car. This causes the car to drive at an angle when going forwards kind of like crab walking.
Angle of thrust is interesting but complicated, I’ll going into it if asked but a Google search is probably more effective.
Now to answer your question, the reason cars need to be aligned is due to components wearing out, also if parts bend or tweak slightly, or if parts need to be replaced the can be a slightly different size.
Many people don’t realize but cars aren’t all built the same, when building anything there is usually a set amount of tolerance to work within. In machining this can be as precise as a .001 inches. In framing this can be as large .5 inches or more, the process of alignment is very precise and it would make manufacturing much more difficult to have the car permanently aligned.
Lastly, though it would be possible to do that, it would run into issues with putting on different sized tires, tire wear, component wear, modification potential, and repairability. I recently had to replace the worn out front suspension on my car and it made the car dangerous to drive as it would try and pull you off the road, after alignment is was fine.
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