Rear Wheel Camber is Eating Tires

Well, I must have gotten really lucky because my driver's side took less time than the passenger side. I did the passenger side first so I had the learning curve there.

I looked at the clearance between the the bolt and exhaust bracket and figured I'd have to take the subframe loose but noticed the rubber exhaust bracket had some play. I stuck a tire iron up in there to pry the rubber part of the muffler bracket out of the way and the bolt came right out. Reinstalling was even easier.

Here is what my muffler bracket looks like from the back. If yours is similar, you may not need to take the subframe loose or cut the bolt.

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Here are the crude alignments I did using a level. I had to do 4 complete 360 degree turns adjusting from stock on the driver's side and 6 on the passenger side. The bubbles indicate a very slight negative camber now, probably .1 to .2 degrees if I had to guess.

Oh, and a tip for the DIY'ers, the 4 bolts unbolt. The 4 nuts are welded and do not move. It was first thing this morning, what can I say...

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I had the car aligned. Both rear wheels are at .5 and .7 degrees. The toe was not causing the wear on mine since the toe was not off. I went with the Kumho tires and they are nice and quiet. Nice to have the camber fixed! Thanks to those who have contributed to this thread!
 
Can the rear camber be set after the installation of the adjustable arms
My car has some bad tyre wear
 
Well I finally got around to this today. I used the SPC arms. Yes, you can get the bolt past the exhaust hanger, but it was harder than I thought it should be. If I had to do it again, I'd just cut the hanger. I guess there's a chance you could figure out how to remove the rubber part, but I couldn't move it out of the way the above poster did. I did manage somehow though; I just can't say how.

The rear end feels stiffer, I'm guessing it's just because there's more rubber on the road. I hope I have the same luck as everyone else and can stop buying tires every 25,000 miles.

Thanks to those who went before me.
 
I just finished replacing my 2012 Mazda5's rear upper control arms with the SPC adjustable control arms. The camber on my car was crazy negative.

This is what my tires looked like with the stock arms.....
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I ordered these arms from Amazon under the AC Delco label......they turned out to be SPC arms.
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Once I had the right side arm off, I could measure the length. It is roughly 28.65cm for the stock length center to center.
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I took the advice of others on this thread as well as other on-line sources to increase the length of the SPC arms from the stock length by 4 complete 360 degree turns.

The 4 turns made the new length center to center about 29.25cm - about a 4mm net length increase from stock. Not super precise - but almost a half centimeter can change the camber angle notably.
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Right side - as many other have stated - took less than 15 minutes.

Left side was way harder with the muffler exhaust bracket in the way. I was able to weasel the bolt out with a ratching box end Craftsman wrench. A socket ratchet would not fit. It helps to spray the rubber muffler mount with WD-40 to lubricate it enough to pull it a bit out of the way. This little bit of extra space allowed me to get my 3/8" torque wrench in there to tighten the bolt back up. Unfortunately the lower control arm only allowed me to swing the torque wrench one click at a time - this took FOREVER.

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My left side wheel seems to be very slightly negative using a cheapo level. The right side wheel has visibly more negative camber. So I may have to adjust that one a bit more. But the camber for both wheels is way less negative than what I started with.

With a new set of rear tires on the back, I will know for sure how this is going. Hopefully we have better results to share later!

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Can the rear camber be set after the installation of the adjustable arms
My car has some bad tyre wear

Yes, but the wheel has to come off every time to adjust. It's a PITA but the time spent aligning the camber will pay dividends in less tire replacement.
 
I installed a set of the same SPC 'arms on a friends mz3 a few years back. Her car would destroy the inside edge of the tires, and was really dangerous on our icy winter roads. The rear was constantly trying to pass the front, and was worse with weight in the back (as the camber and toe in increased).
We did a home alignment by first leveling the floor, using thin shims of plywood placed beneath the wheels to effectively raise the low corners of the floor. Next, we used string lines front to back, for measuring toe (we went for zero), and a digital angle finder for camber (again, went for zero). The car was transformed in it's winter road manner's and tire wear.
I did the exact same thing to our '06 Civic, as it was cursed with the same problems. The only difference was the kit I installed simply relocated the inner pivot location of the upper arm, moving it outwards and therefore standing the wheel up to remove camber. The same transformation to it's winter manner's (the wife was scared to drive it on the highway!), and it's tire wear is perfect.
And in the mail today, I received a set of new SPC arm's for my recently purchased '06 mz5. I'm waiting for some other suspension goodies to show up, and it will all be installed together and aligned using the same methods.
 
My 5 is a 201 and this thread has me all paranoid lol. My passenger side rear tire is wearing on the outer edge of the tire. Is this a problem on 2010's as well or do I just need to get an alignment?
 
Well the inner thread on rear tire just gave out on my 5 and will be going to get new tires. I just ordered some adjustable rear camber arms and was going to installed them before getting new tires. Not anymore!
 
Well the inner thread on rear tire just gave out on my 5 and will be going to get new tires. I just ordered some adjustable rear camber arms and was going to installed them before getting new tires. Not anymore!

It won't hurt to put a couple thousand miles on them, just don't wait too long. The toe was fine on mine, just the camber was out bad enough where I wore the inside edges out first.
 
I spent some time looking at the car the other day before this heat wave. We have cupped inside edges on our '12 MZ5 mostly when the tires are on the rear. What I found:

I took some crude toe measurements of the rear wheels with the vehicle empty using lumber and tape measures. I then added what the typical load in the car to be, mainly the equivalent of my wife and 2-4 kids. After this I found the IRS tends to toe out the wheels under compression. This is what is eating our tires, and aside from another alignment while loaded, not much can be done here.
 
I spent some time looking at the car the other day before this heat wave. We have cupped inside edges on our '12 MZ5 mostly when the tires are on the rear. What I found:

I took some crude toe measurements of the rear wheels with the vehicle empty using lumber and tape measures. I then added what the typical load in the car to be, mainly the equivalent of my wife and 2-4 kids. After this I found the IRS tends to toe out the wheels under compression. This is what is eating our tires, and aside from another alignment while loaded, not much can be done here.

Ah, I suspected this- VERY VERY VERY good info! Maybe stiffer rear spring rates would help. My rear tire wear is a lot better now than it used to be, but my rear springs are also almost 3x stiffer now too. Less travel = less geometry change.

Did you happen to remember the toe change vs height change? Stock rear springs? I wonder if I can toe the rear in at static unloaded to approximate 0 toe under driving/loaded conditions.
 
Stock rear springs, ride height dropped about 1.5", toe measurement change was 3/16" total. I actually had my kids jumping up and down in the cargo area in unison and could see the toe out, that prompted me to test it.
 
Stock rear springs, ride height dropped about 1.5", toe measurement change was 3/16" total. I actually had my kids jumping up and down in the cargo area in unison and could see the toe out, that prompted me to test it.

Wow, ok- that's quite a bit. I'll just have to bring some sand bags with me to the alignment rack next time. Mine's set to almost zero, maybe 0.02 toe in on each wheel at rest.
 
I have a 2006 Mazda 5 that I use as a taxi. I have am having the same problem with the tire wear on the inside of the rear tires. They look a lot worse than the pictures that JPX posted. The edges of the tread almost look sharp like snake scales. Inside the car there is annoying rotating humming noise, because of the tire wear. It almost sounds like a bad wheel bearing. Anyway, It sounds like the fix is to install the SPC arms? I had the car looked at, at a wheel works and the guys told me it was because the rear shocks were bad. Should I replace the SPC arms and put heavy shocks on the rear as well? Is the only advantage of SPC arms being that they are adjustable? Or are they stronger? Can the stock ones get bent with heavy loads in the car? Since I use my 5 as a taxi, I frequently have the car loaded full with people or luggage, so maybe some heavy duty shocks will help too?

Thanks for the help!
 
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