DG-FNR
20+ Year Contributor
- 229
- 49
- Oct 21, 2002
-
Geary,
NB_Canada
Also, I must call BS on that "camber won't wear tires and toe will" comment.
From personal experience:
1) Camber changes the lateral dynamic load on the tire surface. A car with a lot of static negative camber puts more load on the inside edges of the tire. In extreme cases with a wide tire, a lot of static negative can even lift the outside edge clear of the ground.
The increased load on one part of the tire when compared to another increases wear marginally. If we use the extreme example, if the outer part of the tire isn't touching the ground, it can't wear, can it?
But the total wear rate isn't really accelerated. If we assume the same compound, and we make a rough assumption that a tire of X width at a large camber angle produces the same ground pressure ad a non-cambered tire of half the width, we'd assume that both tires would wear out at roughly the same time. In other words, the tire will wear out a little faster than a non-cambered tire of the same width, but not outragously so.
2) Toe physically scrubs the face of the tire across the road. (actually, it sets up a permenent slip angle which may or may not involve physical slip... but we can treat it as a scrubbing action) Any degree of DYNAMIC toe (which relates to any static toe in excess of the factory specs) will result in HIGHLY accelerated wear. Toe is a tire killer.
3) A combination of a lot of static negative camber plus a lot of dynamic toe results in a lot of tire scrub confined to a smaller area of the tire. This combination can kill tires in very short order.
If you are lowering a car, toe is an immediate priority. The tire wear characteristics of toe are such that the only time you want to drive the car with the toe out of spec is on the way to the alignment rack.
The tire wear characteristics of camber, however, are much much smaller, and need not be worried about all that much. For reasonable amounts of static negative, the extra camber might even be a good thing, as you can expect better maximum-roll cornering force.
If the concern is strictly maximizing tire life, then yes, camber is worth correcting. But it is nowhere near as important as toe.
DG
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