tortis

My son took his 2000 Civic to Firestone for an alignment, the front passenger side was wear real badon the inside of the tire.

They told him he needed rear toe adjuster kit, $400 installed, to solve the wear problem.

After searching, seems everybody says get the camber kit not the toe kit?

His car is bone stock.

They gave him a new tire since they were only 3 months old, and we bought them from Firestone.

So which way, Toe, or camber kit? And why would the rear toe cause the front tire to wear?

Thnks

xd69

iTrader: (1)

Neither. The toe can be adjust fine with the OE equipment.

And if you wanna know why you dont need a camber kit:
https://honda-tech.com/forums/suspension-brakes-54/no-you-do-not-need-camber-kits-2614449/

It sounds to me like they are just trying to make some money...

tortis

thanks xd69, kinda what I thought. Were gonna take it over to another Firestone were a friend works and see what he thinks. Thanks for the help.

Tortis

Tyson

no rear toe kit ever needed.

if toe cannot be made in spec, then parts or the chassis is bent.

wear on inside means toe is off. was there an accident? change in springs?

Dual-500

They should have provided you with something like these:





Then you would know exactly what to do - or not to do. If the rear toe is out, and mine had that issue - something is bent. I had to replace a lower arm on my hatch that was bent. Destroyed a set of Nitto's with it.

But, get the spec sheet from the alignment if you don't already have it and go from there.

tortis

Tyson, no wrecks. We've had this car for two years and has been aligned 3-4 times and never a problem.

Dual 500, they gave us the spec sheet, and the right rear -2.1 camber -.55 toe.

He is taking it this morning for a second opinion.

Thanks for the help.

Dual-500

When I bent the lower arm on mine it was the RR. Don't know by how much, but it was a lot and could be seen with a straight edge - so it was worse than your son's car - only say that for reference.

Mine was toe'd out on the RR and also had a few degrees of negative camber. What that did is **** the rear of the car to the right, which meant I had to turn into it to go in a straight line. It wore both fronts excessively. But, wear was the worst on the RR and next the LR. I drove it for a couple of months knowing the tires were wasted anyway.

When I did the RR lower arm job, I then took to alignment shop and then the tire shop. The story is a little more complex than this - I had done a polyurethane bushing job on the chassis and hadn't taken it to alignment shop yet (wverything was real close) when I took a right turn and the RR dropped into a large abyss bending the lower arm.

Another symptom or side effect I discovered was that one of the rear wheel bearings started howling way before it's life expectancy should have ended. I replaced them a year or two before bending lower arm. So, as a part of the fix, I replaced both rear wheel bearing/hub assy's. This premature failure I attribute to the sustained side load on the rear wheel bearings.

Anyway, having the rear tracking off, correcting with the front can cause excessive and uneven wear to front and rear tires.

You are doing the right thing getting a second opinion.

Not sure on the adjustments on your son's car, but on mine, before I replaced the lower arm, I corrected it quite a bit using washers as shims for the camber which also helped relieve some of the toe out. Used a digital level on the wheel for the camber setting. Rear camber, if it's negative (wheels tilting inward at the top) is simple to correct. Just shim the upper arm outward.

I agree with Tyson and xd69, if it's out of spec and bad enough to be causing excessive wear, something is bent.