Hi everyone, I have alignment problem after I drop my car. I dropped it about 1.5" to 1.8", after a month of driving my two front tires were wore out inside edge real bad. I replaced both front tires and took it to the shops to get alignments done. they told me they can't do the alignment on the lowered car.

I did a search around, they said when drop the car I have to replace the camber, is it necessary? or does it gonna help the alignment problem. I notice that after I dropped it the vertical alignment went off a little. kind of lean in at the top. anybody had similar problem and how do you fixed it?

I am going to replace the upper ball joint, cause when I took it to fire stone they told me that I need to replace both upper ball joint. they gave me estimate of $500 to replace that with alignments.. I need to know if the camber that cause the problem so I can replace it at the same time. I found this on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...ZWD1V

I don't know if it would work.

anybody have had this problem?
any help would be appreciate

 

it's 99.999999999999999% chance that you're camber is going to be off after any drop. get a camber kit to fix the problem.

 

yup get a camber kit

 

the TOE is the cause of your problem, and i hate to be the one to say it but you've got to be stupid not to get an alignment as soon as you lower your suspension

 

haha, whats up with this trend of people blaming camber wear on toe? for it to wear out on the inside edge the car would have to be towed out alot which would make it a pain in the *** to drive on the street, this guy didn't know that there was something wrong until his tires wore out, even if you have no experience with cars whatsoever if you drive a car with toe out, you'll know somethings up, its camber and you'll have to buy a camber kit to correct it, as far as i know ingalls seems to be the only decent product for our cars, if anyone else knows any other products, post up

 

yeah, at first I don't think it gonna be too much of different at that much of drop.

 

hey zkylude let me give you some helpful advice since you like an uber noob {no offense we all were at one time} chances are after you dropped your lude the tires went from this l l to this / \ {if you are looking at them head on} this is called your camber angle. it is increased after you drop your car. some people just leave it like that even though it does result in uneven tire wear like the inside tread wear you are experiencing. i could be wrong about this but i hear its better through the turns like this.

you can not "replace your camber" the way you remedy this is to get a camber kit from a performance shop and get it installed and then have the car aligned. always get your car aligned when you drop it. if you went to a shop that said they coudlnt align the car because of it being lowered then you are going to the wrong kind of shop. since you are modding your car the best bet is to take it to a established reputable performance shop, preferably one that specializes in imports. they will be much more able to deal with whatever type of setup you have. try to stay away from "joes garage" if it has something to do with modified components you might end up regretting it.

i hope this helps good luck

 

yes, I'm new to this. Never had dealt with this problem. I'll go ask the guy who did my motor swap to help me find the right kit for it. I wasn't thinking when I lower my car. I just bought spring, shock/strut installed and go... hahahaa Now I know is not that easy.... It's time to tear that thing down again.

Thanks for all your help.

 

its cool like i said we were all new to this at one time. atleast you chose a prelude over like civic or something. also, as far as your ball joints go, if they really need to be replaced, dont buy them from that link you had to ebay. thats a whole control arm kit, you dont need all that. but you should make sure that you really need to get your ball joints replaced, inspect them to see if theres any grease coming out of them and if the rubber boots are broken then they need to be replaced. it would really serve you well to find a good speed shop.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Speedra500 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">haha, whats up with this trend of people blaming camber wear on toe? for it to wear out on the inside edge the car would have to be towed out alot which would make it a pain in the *** to drive on the street, this guy didn't know that there was something wrong until his tires wore out, even if you have no experience with cars whatsoever if you drive a car with toe out, you'll know somethings up, its camber and you'll have to buy a camber kit to correct it, as far as i know ingalls seems to be the only decent product for our cars, if anyone else knows any other products, post up</TD></TR></TABLE>i don't know how the statement of facts is a trend.


^i drove around like that for months without an improper tire wear and no camber kit, wanna know why? because i got an alignment.

fact of the matter is, camber kits don't do jack **** for tire wear as much as they do for wheel clearance and for denting up shock towers. this is all something that i KNOW for a fact because i've EXPERIENCED it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Speedra500 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">haha, whats up with this trend of people blaming camber wear on toe? for it to wear out on the inside edge the car would have to be towed out alot which would make it a pain in the *** to drive on the street, this guy didn't know that there was something wrong until his tires wore out, even if you have no experience with cars whatsoever if you drive a car with toe out, you'll know somethings up, its camber and you'll have to buy a camber kit to correct it, as far as i know ingalls seems to be the only decent product for our cars, if anyone else knows any other products, post up</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's hard to tell the differences. Since I lowered the car, I thought it's just because of it until past few weeks when I drove back and forth from school going 65 to 70 mph. I felt the unusual vibration then i start thinking that the tires were out of balance, so I check the tires and found them all worn out.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Charliegrs &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">its cool like i said we were all new to this at one time. atleast you chose a prelude over like civic or something. also, as far as your ball joints go, if they really need to be replaced, dont buy them from that link you had to ebay. thats a whole control arm kit, you dont need all that. but you should make sure that you really need to get your ball joints replaced, inspect them to see if theres any grease coming out of them and if the rubber boots are broken then they need to be replaced. it would really serve you well to find a good speed shop. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I inspected the after I took it to the firestone they told me to replace the ball joints and recommended me to replace the lower control arms as well. So I think it's better off just replace the whole thing at once.

Thank you for all your guys' comments.

 

Soundbomber is correct. The toe is out of spec. The camber could also be out of spec...but it won't eat through tires in months....you might only see a very slight wear from camber.

generally on a lowered car you want to get the alignment performed every 12-15K miles...because the toe can easily go out of spec.

generally out of toe spec results in only 1/4 or less of the inside or outside wearing very quickly. A camber out of alignment eats about half the tire away...and you will see a gradual wear from inside to out.


I have too much damn experience with all this crap.....soundbomber is RIGHT!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by soundbomber &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i hate to be the one to say it but you've got to be stupid not to get an alignment as soon as you lower your suspension </TD></TR></TABLE>
+1

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by soundbomber &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the TOE is the cause of your problem, and i hate to be the one to say it but you've got to be stupid not to get an alignment as soon as you lower your suspension </TD></TR></TABLE>

x2495234545 all you need is to set your toe to 0 all around and do the normal rotating your tires.

 

toe being out will wear your tires out faster than any other alignment angle. Ive had cars come in at work with only a few thousand miles and the tires are completly worn. Camber will wear your tires but nowhere near as fast.