I need to know why the insides of my tires are showing cloth when the outsides have 4-5/32 of tread left. I do run the fronts at 2 degrees of negative camber but I was under the impression that negative camber won't increase wear as long as the toe is 0. I rotate the tires every 3000 miles but they have less than 10000 miles on them and the front two are done. I do drive pretty hard and I spend a fair amount of time in the mountains in the twisties but I have never seen wear so irregular. Could a strange caster issue I have been having be responsible or related. Somehow the caster on the driver side is way off of spec and not adjustable. I am going to take the car in to SOG some time this week but I am trying to figure out what is going on to ease my own mind. Any ideas?
when you corner hard, you are in effect adding toe (slip angle) depending on how stiff your suspension is. i would think if you're suspension is stiff and you don't corner hard enough/properly to transfer enough load to the outside of the tire, you're still going to scrub the inside. of course this also has to take into account the castor as well which can add or subtract the amount of camber... aw hell with it man take it to sog, suspension dynamics are part science and part voodoo anyways... i guess the simple questions to ask would be what psi are you running (cold) and that yes, camber will wear your tires a bit unevenly on the inside, just nothing like toe will (which is essentially dragging the tread sideways) and yes castor can affect both under load. is it just the driver's inside? and what (if any) compromises were made to the overall alignment to compensate for the off-spec castor?
Well, maybe you aren't increasing the wear. But you're running the weight of the car on the insides of the tires. Driving straight still wears the rubber, so you're going to wear the inside rubber. Maybe I misunderstand your problem.
How long has it been since your last alignment? I had almost the same problem, with wear on the inside, and it turned out that my alignment had gotten out of whack. I would honestly tell you to have it realigned asap.
I've run -3.0 camber for a LONG time... With the toe set at 0.00, there was extremely little wear....I did this for about 5k miles. with 0.02 toe in, there was noticeable wear....different set of tires and went another 5k miles. Finally, I tried 0.02 toe OUT...I chorded them in 2k miles....and this was a different set of tires from the first two. The toe settings are EVERYTHING. Have me do your alignment, you will have to specifically reqest me (Will) when you come in to hand your keys over to one of the service advisors.
I'll try and get it in this week Will. I need to get with Siegel anyway so I might have to put it off a little, depending on his schedule. I am getting a new set of tires on Wed. from Firestone. I have a lifetime alignment with them so I will get them to check it. Don't worry, I won't let those animals touch it, just check it. I already learned that lesson. I also have a weird suspension noise issue that I need you to diagnose and was going to be calling you for that anyway. I sure as hell don't want my new tires to get trashed so quickly.
2.0 degrees is a lot of camber and it is going to cause wear regardless of toe. Toe will cause even more wear. Now combine those two things with aggresive driving and you get lots of tire wear.
We run 1/8" front toe out without any wear issues, but were only able to get -1.1 degree camber. -- Brian
Do I need to specify for you to do the car if I'm doing a performance alignment at SOG or is this just for basic alignments?
Both. When i do a normal alignment, the quality is the exact same as if I were doing a performance alignment. I put it EXACTLY to the spec, no more than 0.01 away from it. When i do a performance alignment, I get it within 0.01 of what we've decided on based on your car and setup, driving habbits, tires and a few other factors involved.
but what about the voodoo? bolderer, i think will needs chicken blood to to it properly... just bring some to be sure.