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Camber - strut mount and kit

2K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  epxepx 
#1 ·
I put in new struts and strut mounts about 6 months ago. My front tires wore a lot more
on the outside. From my reading, that is because of camber.

I know you can adjust camber some by rotating the strut mount to one of four positions. But is it just trial and error ? Since both tires wore on the outside, should I rotate each one half a turn (2 bolts over), and see if that works ?

Are the camber kits still sold, and better to use than rotating the strut mounts ?

Thanks in advance for any advise.
 
#2 ·
How do you drive the car? Spirited? Maybe power into and out of corners? Some wear is normal. That being said have you taken it in to have the alignment checked? I went to Firestone and they gave me a printout of where my alignment was

I've never heard of rotating the mounts. I never even checked which way I installed my mounts or the way they were taken out. Mostly here for the comments.
 
#3 ·
From what I understand, the only adjustment you can do on these cars for camber is
the rotation of the strut mounts - unless you buy an aftermarket camber bolt kit, which adjusts where the strut bolts onto the car.

I hadn't seen tire wear like this before I put in the new struts and strut mounts. There is no reference mark on the strut mounts to show how the camber is being changed. Maybe I just have to experiment, or take it to an alignment shop.
 
#4 ·
Tyre wear is not normally due to camber, it would have to be massively out to cause that. Tyre wear is usually caused by toe in/out. Wear on the outside indicates that you have too much toe in, the wheels are pointing together at the front. You should mark or take a note of where the strut mount is sitting when removing and refitting struts, it is pretty visible when you look at it from the top. You should take the car in for an alignment, pretty hard for a novice to get this right by guesswork.
 
#5 ·
Get an alignment.

From what I've seen aftermarket strut mounts aren't built offset to allow camber/caster adjustment like the OE ones.

But there is usually some slop in the lower strut mount holes to change camber a bit, which also changes toe, which is the most likely cause of your wear.

Get an alignment.
 
#6 ·
I played around a lot with the toe last year. It's so easy to adjust it, and it just doesn't seem that hard to get the tires to a good position. Maybe I will try it again, and go to a little toe out.

There has been a vibration in the driver side for a long time when I get to around 65 mph. I was hoping some adjustments I made would make that go away, but not really. It's not too bad though, nothing like shaking.

The tire wear between front and back on these cars is unbelievable. The back tires hardly show any wear, the front tires lose tread a lot. I just rotated front to back.
 
#7 ·
...But are you actually measuring the toe or just eyeballing it?

And yes, FWD's wear tires in front. They're doing 90% of the work of you know...moving the car around.
 
#8 ·
Vibration at 65 mph would be out of balance or out of round wheels. The vibration set up by an out of balance wheel is more pronounced at around that speed because it is at the resonance frequency of the spring.
 
#9 ·
I had all the tires balanced. Still could not get rid of the front driver side vibration. Most all parts are new (control arm, strut, strut mount, wheel bearing). Kind of disappointing.

When I rotated the tires, the vibration was still there. So thinking it is not a tire issue.
 
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