6/21/2023 0 Comments Excessive negative camberI currently run -3.8 on all four corners on my Audi and once again, with a proper toe alignment - zero unusual wear 6 months and 10k miles later. With my toe set correctly, the tires looked nearly the same a year after mounting them and this included about 5k miles and three road trips later. Mind you, that is about $1000 just in rear rubber. I ran -4.5 degrees in the rear of Porsche C4S in order to fit a 315/25/19 JamesRS5, I am fully aware of the definition of camber. While this is certainly an example of wear not being as important as grip, negative camber even helps these sophisticated racing cars corner better. Less negative camber (until the tire is perpendicular to the road at zero camber) typically will reduce the cornering ability, but results in more even wear.Įven though they have some of the most refined suspensions in the world, the next time you see a head-on photo of a Formula 1 car or CART Champ Car set up for a road course, notice how much negative camber is dialed into the front wheels. The goal is to use enough negative camber to provide good cornering performance while not requiring the tire to put too much of its load on the inner edge while traveling in a straight line. For street-driven vehicles, this means that tire wear and handling requirements must be balanced according to the driver's needs. Excessive camber will also reduce the available straight-line grip required for rapid acceleration and hard stops.Īppropriate camber settings that take into account the vehicle and driver's aggressiveness will help balance treadwear with cornering performance. The vehicle may feel more "nervous" and become more susceptible to tramlining. If the vehicle encounters a bump that only causes one tire to lose some of its grip, the other tire's negative camber will push the vehicle in the direction of the tire that lost grip. Each tire develops an equal and offsetting "camber thrust" force (the same principle that causes a motorcycle to turn when it leans) even when the vehicle is driven straight ahead. What's the downside to negative camber? Negative camber leans both tires on the axle towards the center of the vehicle. However with the aggressive negative camber, a reserved driver's lower cornering speeds would cause the inside edges of the tires to wear faster than the outside edges. An enthusiastic driver who corners faster than a reserved driver will receive more cornering grip and longer tire life from a tire aligned with more negative camber. Since street suspensions cannot completely compensate for the outer tire tipping towards the outside when the vehicle leans in a corner, there isn't a magical camber setting that will allow the tires to remain vertical when traveling straight down the road (for more even wear), and remain perpendicular to the road during hard cornering (for more generous grip).ĭifferent driving styles can also influence the desired camber angle as well. Camber is expressed in degrees, and is said to be negative when the top of the tire tilts inward toward the center of the vehicle and positive when the top leans away from the center of the vehicle. The camber angle identifies how far the tire slants away from vertical when viewed directly from the front or back of the vehicle. Here's a little info for you Jaymac, it's an extract from tirerack's website on camber settings, it pretty much supports what I said above: If you can provide some sound engineering evidence/knowledge to support your claim of excess camber doesn't wear tires then I will apologies to everyone here for stating an incorrect fact, however, you are partially correct, excessive camber and toe will wear tires faster (and I'm talking in a matter of weeks) but excessive camber alone will wear tires and does reduce the contact patch of the tire no matter what your toe angle is,Īt the end of the day jaymac, it's your choice, if it were my car, I'd be fitting the UCA's I suppose I can do the bolts on the front struts and bring it to about half a degree and just leave the rears at the high amount of beg camber and rotate the hell out of the tires to get decent life out of them.No I'm not kidding and I don't believe there is any reason to shout? I mowed through a set of Michelin pilot SS tires (not cheap) in a very short timeīringing the camber on all four tires to about a half a degree fixed the issue with the Civic The rear of the Civic was at about 1.5 degree negative Honda issued a fix which was to bring your car into the dealer and they installed a different length upper control arm for the rear to get more positive camber I had a 2009 Honda Civic si and it had the same issue Whether Toyota lists that as within spec or not.1.6 degrees of negative camber will cause this horrible tire wear Click to expand.Thanks for the responseīut no toe out from the baseline measurement on the alignment machine
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