After hitting a curb again i got my alignment redone. The specs seem fine besides the right front is at -1.8 camber. This is .1 out of the specified range. The guy told me to get camber plates but i feel that this is just his greediness for more money.

Also my cross camber is at .9. Which is also .1 out of the specified range.

Any advice?


--Maleeh Effendi

 

Camber is the inward or outward tilt of the top of the tire (if you didn't know).

A tenth of a degree, or .1 deg. isn't enough to worry about. However, the total amount of camber, 1.8 deg., is somewhat high for a street car. Put it this way, at 2 deg. negative camber you can start expecting uneven tire wear. As a tech., by law I can only make two statements to you, either the cars needs it, or that I recommend it. In this case, I would recommend it. You're not going to hurt the car. I don't think your alignment guy was being greedy.

BTW, my front camber settings are approx. 1.5 deg. negative as I'm typing this. I like the way the car handles that way. I just have to make sure that I rotate my tires frequently.

 

Thanks alot. So how frequent should I rotate? 5k

 

I do it every 10k, or every other oil change would be fine.

 

Thanks man. So let me get this straight. The more negative camber on the FR tire will not effect the car negatively, as long as i rotate frequently. The -1.8 degrees on the RF will actually increase handling.

My only concern now is what will happen becuase the cross camber is off. It is at .9. Which is also .1 out of the specified range.

 

Yes, you are understanding things correctly. 1 deg cross camber isn't a big issue either. I don't believe the car will pull with that. The negative camber helps during cornering because it keeps the tire more in contact with the road. There's a force that thrusts the tire towards the outside of a turn that increases camber; thus, adding negative camber counteracts this and keeps the tire flat in relation to the road. The only problem with this is that when you're going in a straight line- it tends to where the inside of the tire quicker.

I am uploading a pic for reference.

 

Pay attention to the tires during this fast turn. The front left is still essentially flat, even during the corner.

 

Just which wheel hit the curb, and in which direction? What were the toe readings?


Norm

 

Any new developments yet?



socal - apparently I've been running with about -1.8° myself, but with only about 0.2° of cross. That's what I measured before (finally) swapping in the Koni sports. So -1.8° is what I set the car back to, but with less cross, until I get around to doing a fussier job of it. Tire wear is almost dead even across the tread. But I do try to abuse those outside shoulders on a regular, daily basis, which tends to even out the wear from braking with that much camber. Even so, somehow the treadlife prediction remains above 40,000 miles . . .


Norm

 

Every 10K is not that frequent....