I'm about to get a 1995 RS from my fried who needed to get rid of it simply because he deemed it unsafe to drive. This'll be my first car in a couple of years, my last being an FC RX7.

Now about the car, it's never been in an accident save for a couple of parking-garage taps that resulted in simple body repairs.

The past two months, it popped three tires all in the rear (my guess is uneven wear).

Anytime the car drives over a bump, the whole car shifts to one side (I had a similar problem with my FC long ago after I crashed it sideways into a curb, replacing a bent strut fixed the problem)

For the past half a year to a year, the car's steering alignment has been considerably off, making the car steer off to one side when you let go of the wheel.

It's currently running on one donut and the engine runs fine, interior's good, frame's supposedly straight and I'm buying it soon so I need to get this solved asap.

I'm betting it's just a bent strut, I just can't explain why.

 

Get 4 new tires and get an alignment. The toe could be way off. If that doesn't fix it then get it inspected and go from there.

 

I just looked at both rear tires (one's blown out) and both tires have the inner side worn to the wire. Camber off?

What would cause something like this? Is there any way it could be a result of frame damage?

 

most likely is one of the tie rods need to be replace.tires are worn because the prevoius owner ridin it with a messup alignment.i dont think is frame damage not unless it been in a wrecked?

 

Never been in an "accident" but did run over a block of wood once which managed to blow both tires simultaneously. Problems started then but the previous owner (my friend, actually) had the axle replaced and everything seemed better until he had 3 blowouts in the past couple of months, all in the rear.

 

probly just alignment hella offf. i say..and yeah from what it sounds like the camber is off too good thing i have skunk2 all around !

 

Is the car lowered at all?

 

Most likely the uneven tire wear is from bad toe angles. Negative camber doesn't cause bad tire wear unless the toe is also off.

The donut tire isn't helping either, as the car sits uneven and the alignment will be all out of whack.

 

Well this is not necessary true, as I have aligned cars perfectly in terms of toe, and the extreme lowering still wears the tire on the inside due to the amount of negative camber. I rechecked the car after it returned and the tow was still fine, but the cmaber remained negative which wore just the inside of the tires on the front. The rear was not affected as much as the front was, and therefore only had slight inner tire wear. Just a thought...Still wondering how much the car is lowered if any?

 

oh man, this has been discussed and proven time and time and time again in the suspension forum. Toe wears tires, not camber. Period. My tires generally last 30K-40K miles with -1.5 to -2, at times as much as -2.8 camber.

Ask TunerN00b, his other car (non-Honda) has -4 negative camber in the rear, STOCK, and the tires on that car are fine also.

 

No lowering, it's got stock suspension.

 

Nah...believe what you want, but that much camber will wear the inside of the tire more than the outside. It's simple physics as you are putting more pressure on the inside than the outside. I am not here to argue however...neither of us will ever win this battle!

 

If it's at stock height I would guess that toe is wearing the tires. If the car has hit something large (the piece of wood you spoke of) things could actually be bent which can throw things way out of wack. Only new tires and an alignment machine will tell the tale here.

 

I can't get an alignment test with one donut huh?

 

So you're going to sit there and say that -4 camber will surely wear out a tire, when someone who actually has that sort of camber is NOT experiencing abnormal tire wear? dammit where's my hammer icon...

I will continue to refute your statements because they are incorrect. If there's one thing I can't stand is mis-information on forums.

Absolutely not. The car will not be sitting level, which throws off alignment at all 4 corners. Ride height affects toe, so you need to have the same size tires and wheels at all 4 corners to get an accurate alignment.

 

I know you have a lot of posts, and that's cool! I appreciate any help you have given to people on this forum. I align cars, and that's real. You can refute all you want, but remember I am not here to argue. Just because you have seen it one way doesn't mean that in another instance it can't be true. Also the rear of these types of cars is not affected by camber as much as the front would be. What tires are you running on your car to get 30,000 to 40,000? Are you telling me that the inside of your front tires are not worn anymore than the outside...even a 1/32 more? Seems improbable, but you seem pretty confident.

 

Yes, the insides of my tires wear SLIGHTLY more. But I have still gotten 35K miles on a set of Yokohama AVS ES100 V-rated 195/50-15 and W-rated 205/45-16 tires, even with as much as -2.8 camber up front. By the time the tread on the inside edge wears down, the whole tire is already at the wear bars anyway and the tire needs to be replaced.

Toe wears tires, not camber (not nearly as much as incorrect toe anyway), as evidenced by the real-world experiences of me and many other people on this site.

https://honda-tech.com/forums/showpo...3&postcount=20

http://www.hondatuningmagazine.com/t...ngle_wear.html

Yes, you can make your tires last a little longer by using a camber kit. But you're sacrificing handling ability and performance by dialing in 0 camber, and will most likely introduce other problems such as clearance issues under the shock tower, possibility of camber kits slipping, possibility of inferior parts as compared to OEM, etc. It's just not worth the hassle in my opinion.

 

PatrickGSR94...I appreciate your last post. All I was saying initially is that if the camber on your civic/integra is within factory specs (which we both know is not 0 in this case) as an alignment tech I can promise my customer that their tires will not wear after I adjust toe and camber. In the past I had aligned some slammed civics and integras with 17's and 18's (when that was cool...hahahaha), and even though I had the toe adjusted perfectly the inside of the tires would still wear out prematurely. The customer would then come back, blame me and try to get a new set of tires for free. All this as they were slammed 4 plus inches on Ebay coilovers and stock shocks. I would have to agree that doing things right with good suspension components (at reasonble ride heights) the first time and at least having the toe adjusted correctly as well as rotating the tires at scheduled intervals will get enough wear to make most people happy. Thanks for the conversation, and I hope I didn't **** anyone off too much.

To the OP, it is recommended (highly) that you get your alignment done with the 4 rims and tires you plan on using, which should be of the same size, and inflated with the proper amount of air pressure as indicated by your owner's manual (or inthe door jamb). Good luck!

 

Yea that's true... those super-thin, stiff tire sidewalls are more likely to make the tire wear more on the inside with negative camber, than would a tire with a taller, more flexible sidewall.

 

OK so I took it to a hole-in-the-wall alignment shop and the guy took one look at it and said the car's majorly effed up and that he wouldn't promise anything with an alignment..

SO I took it to my friend's family's more reputable mechanic and although he doesn't work on alignments, he looked underneath the car and told me that his best guess was that since there were aftermarket strut bars installed, they probably didn't re-align the car afterwards (seeing as to how there wasn't any visible bends anywhere).

Christmas cleaned me out so I'm gunna bring the car back in after next week.

What do you guys think?

 

My Integra has -4* of front camber (seriously overkill, but eh).
My Spitfire runs -4.75* of rear camber. (This is within factory spec, barely)

I have yet to see any signs of "camber wear". My tires wear evenly, well, my street tires at least. The track tires are a different story.

Those ricers were probably doing burn outs, which will wear tires unevenly with high negative camber, regardless of toe.

My street tires are wearing evenly, to the 1/32", measured with a tread depth gauge (5/32" left all around after 2 years).

My autocross tires, well, 2 of them are at 3/32" center, 0/32" inner shoulder, 2/32" on outer shoulder (front tires for longer than they should have been). I have massive inside front tire spin on corner exit (open OEM diff), which explains the wear pattern. Though, wearing the outer shoulder faster than the center section makes me wonder if I'm not running adequate tire pressure (32 psi hot).

I think that any mechanic who thinks that a strut bar can affect the alignment is NOT a mechanic I would trust with my bicycle, let alone my car...

 

His reasoning was that since they had to take out the LCR bolts to attach the bar, the alignment may have shifted. Still, he told me to take it to an alignment shop to get a better understanding of what the problem is.

 

Wait, that doesn't sound like a shock tower brace to me (Integras don't have struts). Is this some sort of lower tie bar that passes below the exhaust/shift linkage or something?

 

Oh, well I guess thats it, it's a bar that links both rear wheels and passes under the exhaust.

 

ah a rear lower tie bar. That should not affect alignment at all.