I am planning on installing an OEM heated steering wheel but I'm concerned that I might not have the wheels and steering perfectly aligned, and I'll install the new steering wheel slightly off-centered. Would this be corrected on the next alignment visit?
The vehicle is a 16' Volvo XC90 and has electric power-assisted rack-and-pinion steering.
The alignment checks are for your tires relative to each other -- they'll make sure both tires are pointing the same direction at the same time. They don't check whether your steering wheel is aligned, so you're out of luck there.
However, it seems that it's not too hard to tell when the steering wheel is off center. if you'd like, you can take a picture of what the steering wheel looked like relative to the dash before you take it off, then try one notch over to see how different it looks.
This is a steering wheel (on a Volvo XC90) in the proper orientation:
And this is one just one notch off.
These are screengrabs from this YouTube tutorial, which seems to walk you through the whole process if you'd like to take a look.
You don't have to replace the steering wheel. You have a mechanic pull it (or you borrow a steering wheel puller) and then put it back on correctly. HOWEVER a proper alignment will in fact fix a crooked steering wheel. The proper way to align a car is to center the steering wheel and then adjust the wheels to it. Additionally this is the ONLY way to adjust it on some cars as there is a flat spot in the shaft the steering wheel fits against. Source: I have done alignments.
