Rear Wheel Camber is Eating Tires

charitycab your issue will likely be similar to mine, our MZ5 frequently sees heavy loads. If we keep the MZ5 as the primary family runabout any longer I will need to look into load leveling to stop the rear tire issue. I brought this up with the local dealership service manager yesterday during an oil change and he said all MZ5s and some 3s wear the tires this way. I mentioned it to my sales guy in the showroom while I waited and he suggested a new CX-5 lol.

New rear links may help to tune out some camber, at the cost of inducing some oversteer at the limit. I have seen these links in person, they do seem a lot stronger, which might result in a bit more road noise as well.

Our MZ5 got new tires today. Not hearing what sounds like four bad wheel bearings howling was a relief. I can actually hear wind noise and use the bluetooth now.
 
07 mz5 here. currently running megan coilover with megan camber arm. i tried everything but lately found out camber is not an issue here, way they design the arms have issues i guess. i have noticed that when the camber changes the traction arm is twisting in the front of the rear suspension, this arm is suppost support the lower arm and upper arm to move back and forth. somehow when the camber is changed this arm is not holding right and my toe is getting messed up. my tire weared out super fast like in 2 month. also just noticed that rubber powder all over my rear bumper and my tire was wearing out like eraser(i have small rolls of melted rubber piece on every edge of my tire thread. This means im not rolling my tire but dragging in an angle. I'll have to look into how to correct my rear Toe and see if this is fixable. it might be a bad bushings? i don't know but i will find out asap.
 
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Anyone try the camber bolts that replace the outer bolts of the rear UCA? I'm not lowered so thought maybe this would help enough. I saw on another forum some guys had success on their 3's...

http://www.mazda speed forums . org/forum/f12/alternative-rear-camber-links-67525/

NAPA has them...
http://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/R...tk=Keyword&Nty=1&Dn=0&D=2643660&Dk=1&Dp=3&N=0

Also found some here...
http://parts.arlingtonmazda.com/products/CAMBER-BOLT-KIT-(PKBP4K%2d28%2d66ZB).html

so are these a better choice than the arms ?
 
I have a 2013 Mazda 5 with 31,000 miles, I drive almost exclusively highway miles, live in the middle of Indiana so there are no hills or curves. I have my tires rotated and balanced every 6,000 miles (which is about every 12 weeks for me). The inward facing ring of tread pattern on each of the tires is extremely worn while the outer facing 4 rings of tread look like there could be a lot of miles left to them.

I am considering having my tires taken off rims and flipped inside to outside for a while to get some more life out of them. Also considering having the Camber dialed our a little to not have as much negative camber. I saw on the back of mine what appear to be what might be camber adjustment screws. I saw people were getting Camber adjustment arms and wondered if I could get it close to what I want just with the adjustment points I already have? Unless those will max out before I get it close to getting some of the negative camber backed off?

I wanted to know if anyone has tried adjusting these and what their experience has been.

I also would like to know if anyone knows what the specs are for the "Factory" Camber adjustment for the Front and Back wheels for the 2013 Mazda 5?

This is passenger side Back:
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This is drivers side Back:
0617152126_zpsicl5kvpy.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]
 
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Those adjusters you have pictured are for rear toe. I would definitely have an alignment done as usually the eccentric long line is pretty close to the line on the subframe. I believe that is how they are roughly set from the factory using the long line on the eccentric and line on the subframe. Your driver side looks too far out.

It is a combination of rear camber/toe that is causing your wear problem in my opinion. Front/rear camber is not adjustable from the factory, that is why many of us have installed adjustable rear camber links (u-shaped upper link of the rear suspension). Setting rear toe-in closer to 0 deg helps as does cross-rotating tires. Most people don't understand that our tires should be crossed when rotating and isn't possible when directional tires are installed. I cross the rears when installing to the front and the fronts go straight back. This puts each tire on the offending corners, going in the same direction only a fraction of the time if only rotating front to back. Some tires exhibit the wear worse than others as well.

Below is the print-off of the alignment I had done last summer and I had it set up specifically to prevent rear tire wear. I have since went more negative on the rear camber, even more aggressive than what most of our 5's have from the factory, but due to leaving toe-in close to 0 and my tire selection, I have no noticeable wear on the inside shoulders.

PxN7NeiLZZGxjA5UnGmJEdy4oaksgcwZ80hjVkFkX1g=w696-h667-no
 
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Also get under the car and check the condition of your trailing arm bushings and lateral link arms and bushings. It seems crazy, but there could be sloppiness in the suspension due to worn out bushings even at your low mileage. Double check the health of your rear shocks as well, if they are bad it allows more stress to act upon the rear suspension accelerating wear of the soft stuff.
 
so are these a better choice than the arms ?

probably not a better choice, but a cheaper alternative...

ill be lowering soon and trying the camber bolts. the volvo they are sold for weighs about the same as a mazda5 so they should work out ok. I bought them from rockauto.

I might call up the shop i go to for alignments to see if they can just take a measurement of what I am set at now before installing the lowering springs. As it is I have about 10k miles on the tires and they are all noticeably worn on the inside edges. Would like to have a non-tire murdering alignment before getting tires for the new wheels. the wheel sizes are staggered so unfortunately cross rotating is not an option.
 
Hi all,

I just got a 14 Touring with 30k rental miles last week that came with relatively new tires. The rears are at 7/32 and it is already showing negative camber (likely also a little toe out) wear. I ordered the AC Delco / SPC rear camber arms, and am thinking about doing a -0.5" camber, 0 toe alignment soon.

Any suggestion before I go?
 
Hi all,

I just got a 14 Touring with 30k rental miles last week that came with relatively new tires. The rears are at 7/32 and it is already showing negative camber (likely also a little toe out) wear. I ordered the AC Delco / SPC rear camber arms, and am thinking about doing a -0.5" camber, 0 toe alignment soon.

Any suggestion before I go?

Sounds like a solid plan. Just remember to do frequent rotations and you should be set. Congrats on the purchase.
 
I just did the camber arms and after 5 turns away from stop, the alignment result landed me right at -0.6 and -0.4 rear camber. I don't know what the original alignment was prior to the camber arms install.
 
Has anyone installed the firestone rear spring helper airbags on their Mz5? Do you think this would help with rear suspension demons on these cars?
http://www.etrailer.com/susp-2012_Mazda_5.htm

I am kinda sorta curious about those. Just for adjustable load assist reasons.

On one of my prior cars I had rear air shocks and on another I had rear coil over shocks. Both for load assist reasons. I really liked the quick adjustability of the air shocks.
 
Updated photos after camber arms installed

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.....
16143461_large.jpg

JPX - how many miles were on those tires when you took the photo?

@eyeballs : I bought the car used with the tires looking totally worn on the inner tread with cupping. The outer tread looked brand new. MY guess is the original tires BEFORE the camber arm replacement had less than 8,000 miles on them.

I have an update for everyone though. The rear arms went in April 2014 and I got some good wear pattern on the previous front tires.

I put new tires on the rear in Feb 2015. In Dec 2015, I rotated those tires to the front. This is how they looked after 10,000 miles on them (too long for rotation, but hey) which was about 10 months in service.

Wear looks nice and even. Both rear tires looked like this. So the adjustable camber arms helped immensely with the tire wear issue - not bad for $75 for the arms! And since we don't push the Mazda5 that hard, we don't detect any substantial impact to handling or ride with the rest of the stock setup.
19150662.JPG
 
Update on my camber arms. It has been 3.5 years since I installed them on my 2006 Mazda5. I installed a set of Khumo tires when I installed the adjustable camber arms and the rear tires are hardly wearing at all. When I rotated them to the front, they still looked brand new. I think they had 9 or 10 thousand miles on them at that time and have only rotated them once.

Two lessons, get adjustable camber arms, and Khumo makes a great tires for the Mazda5.
 
I have had to replace my tires every 27,000 miles. The new camber arm to extend tire life is something I want done, but not necessarily something I want to do myself. Besides the camber arms I would be wanting new shocks (my Mazda5 bounces horribly), and front suspension work (my passenger side front lower control arm is leaking).

So... what do I tell the mechanic I want? Do I specify brands or just say "this is what I want, put on what you think is best"? If I should specify parts, what exactly should I request?

I am wanting:
(1) rear camber arms, adjustable, to remove the negative camber (so the tire sits perpendicular to the road)
(2) rear shocks (and springs?)
(3) front lower control arm replacement (should I replace both at once?)

Thanks!
 
Hey guys it been a while. Well, we traded in our 5 almost a year ago for a small SUV with 4 overlapping rings on the grill. At trade-in last year the 5 had less than 57K miles, but ever since some older guy clipped her driver's rear back in 2014 I was looking for a reason to get something different.
My wife still talks about her 5, she really liked it. She knew of the issues but at the end of the day I was the one dealing with all the problems. I considered looking at the CX-5 but decide against it out of principle due to Mazda's denial and refusal to correct the rear tire wear issue which I was left to correct myself laying on the garage floor for 3+ hours.

So after ten years (2005-2015) there were only SIX issues with the van:
1. rear tire wear on inner edge.
2. passenger sliding door never again unlocking from the outside after the "freezing door recall X2" which I probably should not have had done since we live in San Diego.
3. passenger side motor mount rupturing and oozed a thick gel down into the frame rail.
4. stumbling and dying accelerating from a stop, (I think Mazda replaced something to do with the Idle Air Control?).
5. driver's door window control stopped working for a week and one day just starting working again on it's own, (after purchasing on eBay a new motor or actuator, can't remember which one).
6. shock absorbers had to be replaced with less than 40K on odometer.

All in all was a pretty decent vehicle, just possibly a bit under engineered. Best of luck and enjoy.

Later,
Albert
 
Albert, try spraying some silicone up into the door felts. Mine did the same thing and they just need to be lubricated, the felts around the door glass.
 
So I see that most here have fixed the alignment issue by installing SPC adjustable cambers. After I order these I will have to look for a shop that can install and do the alignment which I understand can be tedious. How much more can I expect these alignment places to charge vs. Sears, express tire, firestone who charge about $79 here in san diego?
 
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