Front end alignment problems?!

9

94hondakilla

Registered
Well i'm about to put on new tires in the front, 245/40/20 Bfgoodrich gforce ta kdw. The techs are telling me to go with a smaller profile tire because i ride my car lowered all the time. I have enough clearance to turn the wheel in both directions without hitting the fender.
But the old tires that i have on their now is wearing really bad on the inner side of the tire. Tech is telling me a camber issue. Since my car is lowered all the time, i want it to get it aligned at that height. The tech at the dealership is telling me i can't due to the lack of space to adjust the camber and that i have to keep at stock height in order to not wear unevenly. Any suggestions? Sorry for the long post, but i figure some detail would help out.. Thanks guys...
 
RE: Front end alignment problems?!

It depends on how low you go. If your car is lowered too much, the tech is right, you won't have enough adjustment to get the camber within spec. But you can ride lower than stock and have it aligned properly.
 
RE: Front end alignment problems?!

i have the car lowered as much as i can w/o having the tires rub on the fender. Yeah that tech was also telling me having 245/40/20 tires are to big and i should go with a 255/35/20or a 245/35/20 tire in the front, but that means less rim protection from the rough roads. Thanks for the info, i have been trying to find an alignment shop that can align cars with 20inch rims.. thanks again
 
RE: Front end alignment problems?!

you can also put your stock rims back on to have it aligned. The rims won't affect the alignment.
 
RE: Front end alignment problems?!

Yeah, i would do that, but my stock rims are in maine and i'm in hawaii. Thats what i did the first time before i put my rims on, just to make sure everything was right, but i guess from me lowering it and raising it a few times it would throw the alignment off?
 
RE: Front end alignment problems?!

yea, if you're adjusting the height it'll throw the alignment off, unless you put it back at the same height it was at when it was aligned.
 
RE: Front end alignment problems?!

Ray, I don't agree. There is only so much camber adjustment, even on a Mark VIII. If you put the car on a good Hunter machine that'll give you a live reading, you'll see where I'm coming from. A Mark that hasn't been lowered all that much will have much more adjustment left to make up for the little bit of lowering. One that has been slammed a good bit, will be lucky to get to the outside edges of the specs!
Front end specs have a nominal or perfect reading, which the car will usually get the best tire life with.
The specs also say that you can go a little as this much negative camber and as much as this positive camber. The farther away from nominal you get, the worse tire wear. The front and rear tires will naturally bow out when lowering due to the way the suspension is designed.

You could possibly rotate the tires more often to try to help, but you will NEVER get a really low Mark VIII to get as good a tire life as a stock one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top