My 00 civic is lowered on 16 inch rims with tokico struts. The car is eating the insides of the tire like crazy. I just went to the shop and got some numbers, I have a -1.7 degree on driver side and -1.5 on the passenger. What kind and what brand of camber kit do you guys recommend?

 

the main reason your wearing the insides of your tires is due to incorrect toe. dont waste you money w. a camber kit...the numbers you have listed for neg camber are not extreme. many run much more neg camber with minimum tire wear. just go back to your alignment shop and have them set your toe to either factory specs or 0 it out all around. good luck and this should do the trick.

 

lol. 1.5 degrees of negative camber is NOTHING.

did you complete the alignment to fix your toe? how bad was that off...

 

Haha oh dear -1.5 camber. As the others have said your tyres wore because your toe was messed up. Get it set to factory specs or zero by a decent alignment shop and don't buy stuff to fix problems you don't have.

 

o.O I see. I got the toe fixed up back to 0. But the mechanic told me to get a camber kit...Damn mechanic was trying to make some money off me. Also civics are front wheel drives so I only did the alignment on front wheels, assuming that I want to drop it more or get a different size rim, do I do some alignment on the back wheels too?

 

if you drop it more youll have to get another alignment. new wheels no need for alignment.

i would get a camber kit but it's not really required. for the rear u can just use washers.

 

you always need to adjust the toe on the front and rear. if you lower the car more, you'll need to get another alignment. if you add different size wheels/tires you do not need an alignment, only when you mess with the suspension settings.

 

But doesn't the height of the car changes when you put in different size rims/tires on it?

 

you need to get a 4 wheel alignment. even if its FWD.

ride height changes when you change tire size, in a way. but the distance from the axle to the fender, lets say, stays the same. so the suspension really isnt changing.

 

yes, but the geometry of the suspension does NOT change.

Think about it, with bigger wheels, the car sits higher, but the position of all the suspension parts remain in the exact same position, therefor you do not need an alignment from bigger wheels.

I'm glad that you realize that a camber kit is completely unnecessary! This has been a myth for quite some time. A lot of the newer cars come from the factory now with about the same camber you mentioned, and of course they do not have tire wear problems!

 

Oh...I see.