My friend drives a stock 2000 Integra and she was going through tires so she took it in to get it aligned. She was told that her front camber was out and that she had to have camber kits installed. They charged her $80.00 per side for the kits plus labor. They also told her that with wear the camber on these cars "just goes out" sometimes and that nothing else was wrong with her car. I am worried that there is another problem with the suspension.

My question: Are these guys bone heads? Is there a camber problem with these cars?

Sorry, I don't know the mileage.


EDIT: Corrected "rear camber" to "front camber."




Modified by mct121 at 1:55 PM 1/12/2005

 

bump

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mct121 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
My question: Are these guys bone heads? Is there a camber problem with these cars?
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WTF??? There is no way that camber could change unless some suspension part was bent. The only way camber should have changed is if the car was lowered.

How were the tires wearing?

To me it sounds like they just played a girl for money. Camber doesn't just go out for no reason. Now, if it was toe, that's a different story, especially if its the front. But toe can just be adjusted.

I'd look at the car to see if they even put on a camber kit. There's an upper control arm that should have been replaced with an adjustable one. If that's not on there, then they raped her good and I'd go back and demand money back. A rear adjustable camber kit looks something like this:

 

^ right.

camber does not just go out.

toe does.

camber changes when dropping your car should not alarm you, but if it ''goes out'' which is rare, due to it being from bent components.

talk to the shop and see why it just goes out. post the before and after specs on the alignment too.

was it ever in an accident?

 

Toe will wear out tires faster than camber will if it's out-of-spec. That's probably what the problem was.

Stupid idiot grease monkeys who either don't know anything or try to take advantage of people Makes me feel sorry for people who don't know enough about their cars and fall victim to these scams.

My dad took his 2004 Toyota Highlander to a shop a few weeks ago to get new tires because the rear ones were wearing pretty bad (REAR ones, and it's FWD). He said that like 3 different guys at the shop said that one of the rear suspension arms was bent and throwing the alignment out of whack. Then he took it to the Toyota dealer and they were like "oh well the toe is just out of adjustment"... the toe adjustment just happened to be part of the same suspension arm that the other shop said was bent.

 

I got some more information, her passenger side rear tire was bald in the inside.

I thought she said the rear camber was out because of that, but they actually told her the front camber was out.

The car has 50k mi on it.

There was in incident almost four years ago where the vehicle was driven over a curb at speed (don't know how fast, but fast enough to replace wheels and tires). She does not think any suspension components were replaced at the time, but I am not sure about that. The dealership did the work, covered by insurance.

She also has before and after numbers for the alignment, but not at work. I will see if I can get them.

I think that there is something bent some where in her front suspension. I have a Civic and have never looked a the suspension for the Integra, how different is it? Could there be a minor bend in a part that the dealer would consider to be withing spec but still cause alignment problems?


Thanks for all the help. You guys are great.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mct121 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I think that there is something bent some where in her front suspension. I have a Civic and have never looked a the suspension for the Integra, how different is it? Could there be a minor bend in a part that the dealer would consider to be withing spec but still cause alignment problems?
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No, if it can't be corrected with an alignment, then it would not be considered within spec.

I can almost guarantee that her passenger side rear toe setting was out-of-spec and caused the wear problem back there.

If you can get the before/after specs that would show alot about what is going on.

 

i agree with patrick.

camber is rarely the cause of tire wear problems. its almost always a bad toe adjustment.

especially if the car is stock the camber should not even be an issue.
camber is not adjustable unless something is truly bent.

the camber should never change and be equal on both sides.

lets see the before and after to see who is at fault.

 

if u guys think about it they told HER not a guy but a GIRL that her **** wasf*cked... those ****'s was juss tryin tah make some money...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Da6rEpLiCaToR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">if u guys think about it they told HER not a guy but a GIRL that her **** wasf*cked... those ****'s was juss tryin tah make some money...</TD></TR></TABLE>

hence the reason why I posted this above

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PatrickGSR94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Stupid idiot grease monkeys who either don't know anything or try to take advantage of people. Makes me feel sorry for people who don't know enough about their cars and fall victim to these scams. </TD></TR></TABLE>

 

I don't think the camber is causing the wear problem, but I am also think that either she is being taken for a ride, so to speak, or they are fixing the symptom and not the problem. Everything I have read here supports what I though, but I wanted some other opinions from more knowledgeable people.

I should get before/after numbers today. I will post them when I do.

 

 

Okay, she got me the numbers. She actually got me 5 sets of numbers and I can not be certain that they are stapled together in chronological order. But, to the best of my ability, here they are: (Sorry about the formatting, I am sure that there is a better way to do it but I don't hvae time to find it right now.)

For the record, this is not a Type R.

Initial (all five show the same initial values, so I will list them once):
_______________ Camber ________ Toe ________ Caster
Front Left ________ -0.7 _________ 0.00 _________ 0.3
Front Right _______ -1.3 _________ -0.05 _________ 0.1
Rear Left ________ -0.8 __________ 0.05
Rear Right _______ -1.4 _________ 0.00


Fist Alignment:
______________ Camber _________ Toe _______ Caster
Front Left _______ -0.5 __________ -0.85 ________ 0.2
Front Right _______ 0.8 __________ 0.25 _________ 1.1
Rear Left ________ -0.8 __________ 0.10
Rear Right _______ -1.3 __________ 0.05


Second Alignment:
______________ Camber ________ Toe _______ Caster
Front Left _______ -0.7 _________ 0.00 ________ 0.4
Front Right _______ 0.2 _________ 0.00 ________ 0.3
Rear Left ________ -0.9 _________ 0.05
Rear Right _______ -1.3 ________ -0.05


At this point the camber kit was installed, I don't think those numbers are of any use but if you want them I have them. They told her that since the front camber numbers had different signs (+/-) they were out of spec. I am still learning here so help me out.

Thanks again.

 

how is caster changing? there's something wrong with their methods of measuring...

 

she has postive .8 camber , that is not good.

its needed to have at least -.5 negative camber

did your girlfriend run over the curb with just the right side of the car?

you put 3 specs on this post, but you say at this point the camber kit was installed, what are the specs after the kit was installed?

there is no way that camber should change without have installing the camber kit. there is no adjustment for caster or camber.

it seems the initial toe was fine for the FL and RR, with 0, actually it was fine for all the tires, but it seems the first alignment you had they worsened the specs!

what shop is this!

 

Actually the toe setting look like junk on all 3 readings.
On the initial reading the front right is toe'd out, and the rear left is toe'd in.

On the first alignment, toe is ALL over the place, toe'd out on the front left, and toe'd in on all the rest.


On the 2nd alignment, it shows rear left toe'd in, and rear right toe'd out. While this gives a total toe of 0, it throws the thrust angle off. Thrust angle is very important as you ALWAYS want that to be as close to 0 as you can possibly get it. If the thrust angle is off, the car will track down the road at an angle. As an exagerated example, think of a hook-n-ladder fire truck where if the guy at the steering wheel in the back of the trailer turns the wheel to one side, the truck will still be going straight, but the trailer would be stuck out to one side as it drives down the road.

Whatever shop that was (or shops), they really suck at doing alignments. But as was mentioned, front camber should never be positive, the only way for that to happen would be damaged suspension components. In that case, a camber kit is really just a band-aid fix, as you should really locate and replace whatever parts are bent/damaged.

 

If some ball joints &/or suspension bushings are loose, then whatever they do the angles keep moving around. But a good shop is supposed to recognize this & tell you to fix it first before aligning...

Alignment never goes out 'for no reason'. But often the reason is just stupid/simple like a big pothole, rusty underbody that can bend, or a loose ball joint, or even bolted components working loose with age.

edit/ well, yeah a 2000 isn't old enough to be falling apart from rust. I gotta read these postings more carefully.


Modified by JimBlake at 10:21 AM 1/14/2005

 

Well dang it's a 2000, it shouldn't be THAT bad. I know most of my bushings are pretty worn but I don't get bad tire wear and my alignment readings certainly aren't all over the place when my friend does my alignment for me.

 

The only way you need a camber kit for these cars if it is slammed or dropped really low where the inside part of the tire gets worn qucikly.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MITSUBA &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The only way you need a camber kit for these cars if it is slammed or dropped really low where the inside part of the tire gets worn qucikly.</TD></TR></TABLE>

And even then you don't really need a camber kit. You can be dropped 3"+ like me and not have any significant abnormal tire wear if the toe is set properly and you rotate the tires regularly.

 

I would like to that all of you for the good information. It has been decided that the car is going to the dealer to make sure that there are no problems with the suspension.

I have learned, in addition to some more about how alignment works, not to use Tires Plus in Berwyn, PA to get alignment work done.


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by IVI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">did your girlfriend run over the curb with just the right side of the car?</TD></TR></TABLE>

For the record, she is not my girlfriend just a friend and coworker. If I let this go unchecked I may get in trouble with my wife.