hey guys, im a pretty good shade tree mechanic on just about anything thrown at me, and i specialize in classic VW's which use main king and link pin front ends ( super old school stuff pre-66 ) anyway heres my problem

i bought my wife a 97 accord, it drives straight as an arrow, the wheel returns to center properly etc... everything feels alright, and seemed to look alright till it chewed up a set of front tires in the time it took me to get 5k on it. it began as a small low speed shimmy, upon further investigation, i have a bad right outer ball joint, and i have a pretty good amount of positive camber on the front end. causing the front tires to wear out on the insides at the a fore mentioned extremely accelerated rate

from everything ive been told and read hondas do not have a camber adjustment on the front end, could my 1 bad ball joint be causing this issue?

the car appears to be stock ride height so i dont imagine the camber is from lowering it.

ive done a bit of searching and cant come up with anything good and im hoping someone here can help me out and point me in the right direction.

thanks!

Brian


PS i posted this on honda forums as well as here, id like to figure this out so i can quit putting used tires on the front end.

 

Camber does less damage to your wheels than toe does.

If you have not had an alignment recently you NEED to do it. Sounds like the ball joint might be contributing to the problem, but you may have bent suspension components. The tires probably are chewed up due to some horrible alignment on there, either from bent components or just a whacked out tie rod or something.


Also as an fyi,
Positive camber would be outwards away from the car. Negative is towards the car, which is the inside

 

If the tires are wearing out that quickly, with an abnormal pattern of any kind, something in the front suspension is bent or worn out.

Yes, a loose ball joint with produce negative camber and excessive inboard tire wear. But you have to check everything (ball joints, struts, tie rod ends, bushings), replace the bad parts and then finish off with the wheel alignment.

 

thanks guys, i hadnt had my coffee yet, your right its neg camber.

my bad..

ill be replacing the suspect b/j and the tie rod ends anyway...
it has 175k, new bilstein's all the way around and they all look very clean still no signs of leakage

im not so sure its something bent since both wheels seem to have about the same amount of camber, the driver side does wear out a little faster but they both wear out really fast.

ill give it all a once over and re-align it and go from there..

if anyone can think of anything it may be i appreciate any input.


thanks again..

p.s.

would it still return to center and drive straight if it has too much toe in? im not to up to speed on modern front ends... as i understand it castor has more to do with self re-center than toe, is that correct?

anyway thanks again for the help!

 

Have you installed a camber kit?
Is the vehicle lowered?

 

Yes - it could still steer straight and return to center if your toe is out.

Camber is not adjustable unless to install camber kits. SPC makes kits that replace the upper ball joint and gives you adjustable camber. This should not be required unless you're lowered or have another problem that you're compensating for.

 

I am going with toe.

I have 3 degrees of neg. camber all the way around form lowering, and minor toe in the back and have had these tires, no rotated yet (should be this weekend though) for over half a year and no signs of wear. Camber will not wear away at a tire as much toe. Camber will just cause uneven distribution of weight onto the tire, meaning negative will put more weight to the inner and positive to outer. But toe will actually make the tire rub in whatever direction the toe is against the road and give you a feathered tire wear.

Take it somewhere to get it aligned and see what there alignment machine comes back with on toe and camber numbers.

 

. My car is not lowered but does have camber kit the front is uneven is it dangerous to drive like that feel like the cars wobbling left to right when I drive in rain. And even on dry surface still drives funny wheels wobble a little bit left to right on its own ? any idea

 

Why is there a camber kit if the car is not lowered?
How much negative camber(if any) is there?
What is your caster set to?
How much toe does the car have.
Verified correct tire pressure?

All these things will affect how the car acts/reacts on various road surfaces.