Ok, so my car is almost tucking tires, with front and rear adjustable arms.

One day I all of sudden noticed a humming or almost like a chopper sounds anything over 50mph coming from the rear of my car.

I jacked up the rear and found that my passenger rear camber arm bushing is destroy and a little loose so then I had the tire replaced. The tire had bad wear on inner side but what was weird was that it wasnt a smooth wear, I ran my hands around it and it had alot of lumps around the whole inner tire wear instead of a smooth surfaced.

Took it for a test drive, and the noise is still there but is a little better then figure I look at the driver side and found out the tire had the same symptom.

Anyone know what is causing this?

Could it be my rear camber arm?

 

are they ebay camber arms? if so, thats your problem.

 

Yes, apparently im using ebay arms.

So getting a new set of skunk2's could solve the problem?

 

could be your wheel bearings. that will cause the uneven wear.. and the humming..

 

Could be the bearings. but lets hope its just cheap upper control arms. You get what you pay for.

 

thats what toe will do that to your tire. did you have the car aligned?
oh and DONT USE EBAY PARTS, they are terrible and fail early. skunk2 will creek and make weird sounds. i wouldnt even use a camber kit, throw the stock parts back on and have the car aligned and rotate your tires.

 

Wow... you people really think the camber arms are causing cupping on a tire? The worn out bushing may contribute but cupping is caused by bad shocks. Replace them or you'l ruin your new tires. It's less noticable due to the amount of tread.

A wheel bearing will not roar any less due to new tires.

Tire rotations won't eliminate the wear a tire sees from negative camber in the rear, only getting the camber back within factory spec will, which depending on how low you are, may not be possible.

 

so many possibilities here, well im going to order some skunk2 lowering springs first to bring up my ride height a little bit and maybe that can correct my camber.

About going back to stock camber was also one of my idea too, since im going to be raising it back up and the height will be higher dramatically, and I hope adjustable arms shouldnt be necessary.

Im currently running eibach dampers, not sure if they are blown yet already or not but I'll check them out.

Anyone know the spring rate on stock civic si springs

Thanks for all the inputs guys.

 

It depends on what kind of cuppiing you're talking about. Cupping is most often caused by toe, but can also be caused by worn shocks, although the wear will look different between the two instances.

Worn shocks will cause cupping horizontally across the face of the tread, whereas toe will be limited to the inside or outside edge of the tire, and is often mistaken for camber wear because it looks similar. Unless you're certain what kind of wear you're looking at or have a component that's obviously bad, you should have your toe alignment checked before you start throwing parts at it.

 

I agree %100 with this! well it's what i do any ways

 

the inner tire well is where its getting the uneven wear on both side of the rear tires. Like I said, it lumpy when I run my hands around it.

From my past experience it would just wear unevenly with a smooth surface where now its lumpy and im thinking thats causing that chopper noise.

Well Im getting a hold of some stock rear arms ones for cheap so Im going to through those in there and put the front tires in the rear to see if the noise is still there or if the noise gets transfer to the front then maybe well know where the problem is.

Oh, and the rear springs are chopped from stock si springs.

I need to man up because now im feeling this car is falling apart doing it cheap.

 

also check the front componsator arms (adjust toe), if you feel like you need new ones pm me,
check it out and have it aligned, make sure they 0 out the toe

 

I'm gong to bring it in to get an alignment check to see where everything sits and i'll go from there.

 

Just got back from getting an alignment. Here are the specs from the alignment.

front:
-2 camber
total of .33 toes (L/R)

rear:
-4 camber
total of .13 toes (L/R)

The mechanic tells me to my alignment is good as for road racing and hard driving but as for correcting my camber he said my car is too low to even adjust my rear camber otherwise it will rub my rear qrter lip so he recommends me to rotate my tires every oil change to help with the cupping.

Either im going to pull my rear lip to adjust my camber to around -2 or *** it and just rotate my tires every oil change.

 

Did you replace that upper control arm that was broken? I would lift the car a little.

 

Ok, swapped the rear tires to the front and the noise now transfer to the front, so its not my bearing atleast thats causing the humming chopper sound affects, as for my uca I noticed that it was tighten wrong, the nut was tighten towards the boots and not towards the center shaft that both ends screws into, that also explains why my rear camber boot is torned. Lesson learn, never let other people install your shiits.

anyway im pulling the lip of the inner fenders this weekend and bring it back to get it aligned to stock specs or better.

 

I just got my 2004 Honda Civic back from the shop and they noted cupping on the rear tires, 80,000mile Goodyears I just put on about 10,000 miles ago. Having just taken it out of the shop for the expensive timing belt replacement, I'm dreading going back without any idea what might be wrong and how much that might cost. Should I start by asking for an alignment? If it does need the shocks or struts replaced, what would the financial damage on that look like?

Clearly I have no background in automotive repair so any advice/suggestions from the members here will be greatly appreciated!

 

^ you start by starting your own thread and doing your own research.
Has the car been lowerd? ever had it aligned?

 

It's never been lowered. Nothing's been changed from the factory, it's had all the regularly scheduled maintenance and it was aligned when I got new tires 10,000 miles ago.

I have been doing some research and I keep coming across a rear control arm problem with Civics prior to 2008 that was causing cupping on the rear tires. However, I don't want to assume that's the problem and was wondering if the alignment is the place to start or if there's some way to determine more specifically what the problem is before I walk into the shop with my wallet open...

 

i have heard of this issue, call honda and explain it to them, they should be able to tell you if you need to get it replaced or not.