Stock alignment and tire wear

I

iluvmacs

Member
:
2003 Protege ES
I've seen a bunch of posts of people getting excessive inner front tire wear. I have pretty bad inner tire wear (see pic) and I haven't messed with the alignment since I got the car (had 2500 miles after 3 months of someone else's driving).

Is the stock wheel alignment set up with too much camber (so the bulk of the pressure is on the inside of the wheel)?

If I neutralize the camber (make the wheel flatter) am i going to have cornering problems (is the good handling a product of the camber)?

What do I need to adjust to pull in the camber a little bit? I don't want to pay for a full alignment if I just need to adjust one thing. I'm pretty good with scribing and measuring alignment changes.

Thanks.

Sorry the pic sucks, but you should be able to tell the difference between my rear tire (left), the front tire (right), and the inside corner (furthest right).
 

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it had 2500 when you got it ..and how many more miles before you took that pic... im thinking you need to rotate man
 
I would not put faith that the car had any kindof alignment when you bought it. Plus, the factory setting have a LOT of room in them to still cause bad tire wear.
 
^ yep, what he said.

Getting your car aligned will only benefit you, yours tires would wear evenly, better handling in the corners, effective stright line braking...and more.
Firestone (if available in your area) has an lifetime alignment package for $129 i belive. You might want to check into that, if not, just get a regular 4 wheel alignment.

BTW: I drive down to the computer show in the convention center in Monroeville, its pretty neat.

keep us posted on the alignment issue though.
 
haaswyk: I have 11800 on it now. I rotated a while back, but definately too late. My rears look brand new. I also have snow tires on now (no evidence of uneven wear) so 11800 - 2500 isn't really the amount of wear that you see.

njaremka: that really sucks. However, I do see how it's more cost effective not to check the alignment at the factory, or to have loose specs.

centsless: I have some torque issues in slippery conditions (needs limited slip diff) but my braking is fine. I have a firestone within walking distance from my house, so I'll ask about that.

I went to the home show at the expo mart. It's a neat place indeed. I'm going to the auto show this weekend. I never have seen advertisement for the exposition center thing they have downtown, but it's really cool looking from the outside.
 
mine wore the first 3k i drove on mine then I installed my Pro-kit and they stopped wearing. weird huh
 
Inside wear can be either too much toe-out or too much negative camber. Another bad thing is that so many shops won't do anything but " set the toe" as long as everything else is "within spec", or in other words, within the limits of how far the factory settings can be and still be considered "OK." Far too often people are paying $40-60 (and up) for some goon to set the toe-in, which might not take 5 minutes. Best bet is to have a Personal Friend who works somewhere with a rack, who can take the time to get it more dead on, maybe even put you in the driver's seat while he does the work. My 2 cents.
 
rustychops41 said:
Inside wear can be either too much toe-out or too much negative camber. Another bad thing is that so many shops won't do anything but " set the toe" as long as everything else is "within spec", or in other words, within the limits of how far the factory settings can be and still be considered "OK." Far too often people are paying $40-60 (and up) for some goon to set the toe-in, which might not take 5 minutes. Best bet is to have a Personal Friend who works somewhere with a rack, who can take the time to get it more dead on, maybe even put you in the driver's seat while he does the work. My 2 cents.
Click to expand...

yeah, whats up with that.. Ive heard about having someone inside the car (driver seat) while aligning and also have a full tank of gas..

Is the difference without such option greater or is it just marginal to a point that a drive would not notice??
 
You can't adjust camber in your car. Just toe. It sounds like you have too much toe-in or toe-out. Having you sit in the car is for setting up the camber so that it is even while you are in the car.

What suspension do you have? If you have springs and didn't re-align the car it will have toe-in since the tie-rods are to the rear of the hub.

I do my own alignments at home and I have been spot on when people take their cars to get a laser alignment check after I have done it. It's not that bad and just be tedious about it.
 
are you sure you can't adjust camber? i went from -1.6 in front to -.8 on the left and -.6 on the right. rears are gonna get camber bolts and be adjusted to -1.8 both sides. stock tolerances only allow up to -1.4 i believe.
 
tonkabui said:
are you sure you can't adjust camber? i went from -1.6 in front to -.8 on the left and -.6 on the right. rears are gonna get camber bolts and be adjusted to -1.8 both sides. stock tolerances only allow up to -1.4 i believe.
Click to expand...

Let me clarify "you can not adjust the camber as Mazda made the car."
You can buy "crash" bolts and get some reasonable camber.

Why did you go to less neg. camber in the front, and more in the rear? The stock range is there so that the techs can see if it is within the parameters of the manufacturing tolerances. So if a car is outside of that range the tech can tell the owner that their suspension is screwed up. But all they can adjust is the Toe settings for the front and rear.

I'm going to take a BFH to my front wheels to get more neg. camber. :D
 
Let me clarify "you can not adjust the camber as Mazda made the car."
You can buy "crash" bolts and get some reasonable camber.

Camber (and caster too) can be adjusted to a small degree. This is done by rotating the upper spring perch mount. If you look closely, the strut centerline is not in the middle of the 4-bolt mount, it is actually a few MM's off center, OPPOSITE the paint mark near one of the 4 bolts. The stock setting (piant marks toward outer/rear) is for MAX neg. camber, MIN caster. If too much negative camber is a problem you can dial out a little of it by rotating the paint mark to either INSIDE position, forward for more caster, rearward for less caster. The factory manual shows the variations, and they are small, but it can help a little.
 
I spun the struts. You have to have both wheels off the ground because the sway bar will keep you from pushing the strut down.

30 minutes of camber adjustment might not be enough, but it'll help.
 
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