legacycentral bbs

8 months ago, when I slapped on my 'new' WRX rims and the semi used RE92's, I got an alignment from les schwab. The before/after alignment numbers barely changed, so seems like stuff is pretty stable.

Fast forward to today. Crawling under my car to replace the rocker cover gaskets and washers I noticed major inner wear on both tires.

Left:


Right:


When I jack the front center of the car up and the wheels leave the ground, the bottom of the wheel angles in some. I assume this is normal.

Whats with the inner wear? I need another alignment already or thats just how these cars wear tires when spiritly driven around town?

Typically spirited driving wears the outer part of the tire, which is why more negative camber is recommended so the outer & inner wear due to more negative camber help cancel each other out.....not to mention the extra grip due to more negative camber.

What were your alignment numbers?

The numbers were:

Left front:
Camber: -0.2*
caster: 3.6*
toe: -0.02"

Right front:
Camber: -0.1*
caster: 3.2*
toe: -0.01"

Front totals:
toe: -0.03"
cross camber: -0.10*
cross caster: 0.40*

Front setback: -0.20*
Rear Setback: -0.60*
Thrust angle: 0*
S.A.I.: 14.4*

Left rear
Camber: -0.9*
Toe: 0.02"

Right rear:
camber: -0.8*
toe: -0.03"

Get rid of the toe on all corners.

That little bit of toe (which I thought was recommended?) is causing the inner tire wear?

I do my own alignments because I have experienced that shops, even with their laser alignment racks, can't do as good of a job as I can with a measuring tape, bubble level, and my trusty spanner. It just takes some hard work and know how.

did you possibly recently re-mount the tires and the outsides became the insides?


....

cuz no camber makes inner wear weird

?

The tires could have been unevenly worn prior to putting them on your car. Now, after wearing the tread down even more, the uneven-ness becomes visually apparent. At least it's a possibility. I don't know if that little amount of toe would cause that wear pattern, but toe should certainly be as close to zero as possible.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to the numbers they give you. I went to firestone 6 times, and they never once got it right, every time they gave me some badly off number, and a new fixed number, and every time the alignment didn't change at all in reality.

It's most likely the toe that's causing this. It's a common misconception that camber causes that, but it does not, at least not to that extent.

Well the point is now moot for that car and wheels since it's wrecked...

Oh wow, I need to start paying attention to post dates, forgot how slow this forum moves. Sorry about the wreck though...

my $0.02: toe kills tires. I see it almost everyday at work. even something as small as .08 degrees off will eat 'em up. if you live in a badly paved part of the country I would recommend an alignment about every 6 months. I do mine every few months, and it is usually tipping in on being out of spec.