heres the deal guys: i've never been able to get my tires to wear evenly. they always wear about 1" of the inside of the tire down and nothing else. this sounds like a toe problem to me so i got the car aligned for the eighth time. here is the alignment sheet:



the car pulls to the right pretty hard which i can only conclude is that there is to much cross camber on the left side or because of me having a slightly sticking caliper on the rear right. i tried to combat this a little by putting more positive caster on the right side.

anyway, all the bushings and lower balljoints have been replaced along with the boots to the upper ball joints about 40k ago. the tie rods have also been replaced. i checked (by the tire wiggle test) and every side of the car is solid.


but WTH IS UP WITH THE TOE WEAR? i'm going through a set of summer tires every season. HELP!

 

If the tires are "choppy" or "feathering" thats a signs of toe being out...
If theyre just wearing on the inside with no chop or feathering to them, it sounds like camber wear only...
Throw some weight in the drivers seat to simulate the weight of the driver. This makes for a more accurate alignment as does having 1/2 a tank of gas...
This is how I usually do them...

 

I would say your camber settings are contributing to your pull to the right...
If you cant get them into spec, I would try to at least make them even side to side...
The castor is the only one you should offset to help with pulling/drifting.(IMO) which looks pretty good to me how you have it...

 

Unequal caster will cause a pull, as will uneven camber. My advise is always to set both caster and camber equally side to side. With Honda double wishbone suspensions (at least those I've had a close look at) caster is unaffected by driver weight because both wishbones are longitudinally horizontal (i.e. front and rear chassis mounts are at the same height) and neither the lower nor upper ball joint moves longitudinally as the suspension rises / falls (hence no caster change). Mac struts do suffer from caster change with suspension movement because as the lower ball joint rises / falls the angle between it and the upper strut mouint changes, thus creating caster change (another reason to dump on Mac struts...).

I've measured the front camber change on my CB7 Accord (double wishbone front end) with and without driver weight, and it's close to 0.1° of difference, i.e. not enough to be of concern. Since Mac struts have a worse camber curve (i.e. gain less neg camber with bump motion), then the camber change with driver weight would be even less than for a double wishbone suspension (hey, a good thing about Mac struts, not that it makes any difference...).

I suspect you need might more caster angle because I think the inner edge wear is occuring when the IF is steered and some body roll exists. This means that the IF may well be running on it's inner edge as you corner (especially if you corner hard). Adding caster will create steered IF pos camber gain, so as you corner the body roll and static neg camber won't be conspiring quite so hard to cause the IF to be on it's inner edge, or at least the steered pos camber gain at the IF will counteract the static neg camber and body roll induced camber gain at the IF.

 

look at your before specs, thats why your tires were wearing, regardless of howmany times its been aligned before it was still out. Why didnt they fix the LF camber?, that'll cause inside edge tire wear and can cause a drift to the right

 

just to let ya know ****, this has been ongoing problem. i've had many things done to the car and everytime right before i buy tires i get the car aligned it aligns much like the sheet shows: everything except one side camber lines up fine. i've probably had 8 alignments on my car and everytime they get the toe in spec and it still always kills tires.

the reason it was so outta whack before was that i had to take the radius rod off so that i can add more positive caster to that side (yes u can add caster).

i have 2 posts going on about my problem. the other is in the prelude section. check it out guys!


https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2399485

 

Like I said, if the alignment is out, it will wear tires...our shop recommends checking it twice a year....Now if your question is "why do my alignment specs change so quickly" , then I might be able to help ya. Is it a reputable shop? Are they actually doing the alignment, and not just pushing in on the tires and hitting print? Do your streets have a bunch of pot holes? What part of the tire is wearing the most? How long has it been since this problem started?

 

You've got chopped tires? When was the last time you replaced your shocks? If your alignment keeps flying out of spec like that a couple times a year, you must be bajaing that thing around. There's no reason an alignment should fall so far out of spec (assuming you're just using the car as a daily).

Do you have your SAI and Included Angle specs? You've got a huge caster difference, obviously. There's a thread on here about the effect of a lot of negative camber on a car with perfect toe, and that person's results are identical to what I experience on my own cars. Very little wear on the inside shoulder, really pretty even treadwear. Although I can align my car anytime I want, so I guess that's an advantage I have over the common car builder.

 

your ball joints might b shot.

 

i drive the car very careful and in the middle of the road. i hit almost no pot holes but our roads are very rough in my area (i live out in the country). i don't baja as my average speed is 45-50 and 40 uphills. i seriously drive like an old man because of the gas prices. (i get 35mpg though).

the shocks were replaced about 3 years ago but with used agx's. i've ridden on blown shocks before and these don't seem to feel blown. i also don't see them leaking.

the alignment actually doesn't go out of wack too often. the reason it changes so much is because i've had to change cv shafts a couple of times and one time i broke a radius rod (the guy that did my alignment previously tightened the radius rod too much which basically eliminated the effects of having bushings).

hatchling, what do u mean sai and included angle specs? the caster difference shouldn't cause the tire wear like that.

could the shocks really be causing toe like wear? why would all 4 tires wear if it was the camber problem of that one tire? is because of the pull my car has due to the sticky brake caliper?

 

also, z395, i checked the balljoints and they're solid. as are the tie rods and bushings.

i was also thinking that maybe the shop i go to for alignments has an out of calibrated alignment rack. i also go to the same shop because i have a hard time finding a garage round here that will even touch lowered vehicles (and for good reason).

maybe i should try a new garage?

 

another thing i forgot, on the other post in prelude thread i posted up my tires as they are currently. take a look!

 

SAI= steering axis inclination can be read about here, its too long to explain
http://autorepair.about.com/li...a.htm
thats not shock wear, and the angle your toe settings were at, will cause the outside edge wear. fix that sticky caliper and the pull should be eliminated, and roatating your tires every 5k-6k miles will get you a little more tire life, also I would find another shop to check the alignment and verify that your shops machine is correct.

 

srmofo, i'm not quite sure i understand this steering axis inclination. wouldn't all unequal length double wishbones suspensions have a large inclination angle? this would also mean that a inclination angle of zero means that the balljoints form a vertical line which would mean your suspension has an equal length a-arm setup.

also, what is the desired inclination angle and how does it relate to tire wear? can i just measure this by hand and be accurate enough to help the situation?