Originally Posted by Zell

Mmmmmmmm kind of. If your previous tires were wearing improperly, sometimes alignment shops will adjust them to wear to a more proper level. Then when you get new tires, you may find the alignment to be a little bit different.

This is for a relatively extreme case, by the way. I've had one of those - garbage tires made by Maxxis (never buy them unless they're bike tires!) that wore on all four edges only. They're horribly loud.

When I took the car to the dealership to get them aligned, they said they wouldn't be able to get it perfectly straight due to the weird wear pattern on all four tires.