Tirewear

[CarlosSpider]

Hi all

I know that having bad adjusted the camber angle produces an inner shoulder wear in the tires (excessive negative camber).

But now, to the inverse: Having an inner shoulder wear in the tires must be only to the camber angle?, or also can be by a bad toe-in?

Thanks

[papajam]

Inner tire wear can be caused by any of the following and in any combination;

1) excessive negative camber
2) low tire pressure
3) excessive toe-OUT

With toe-out though, one would expect to see feathering of the tread.

[BigSwede]

In my experience camber doesn't wear tires, not nearly as much as bad toe angle.
Get you alignment checked and adjusted at a shop, all four wheels.

[papajam]

I mean no disrespect BigSwede, but I think you might be confusing caster and camber. Caster is the non-tire wearing angle (unless the side to side differential is like 5 degrees or something) but camber most certainly is a tire wearing angle.
For street cars, excessive tire wear is caused, by far, by incorrect tire pressure (Alfa owners seem to be better than most at maintaining proper pressure though). Next is camber. Then toe; either in or out.

[BigSwede]

Nope, no confusion here. I and a lot of my friends have camber from 0 to -3.5 on streetcars (which of course see the track quite often) and the cars with lots of negative camber wears the tires like the ones with less negative camber.
I also used to believe that camber ate the inside but not anymore.

BTW. Kinda hard to confuse camber and caster on the rear axle...

edit: spelling

[JoeCab]

The thing about negative camber is that it will only wear the inside of the tires if you spend a lot of time driving in a straight line

[BigSwede]

Oh yeah, that might be it then...

[papajam]

Yep. Track use is the difference. Now if only the interstate highways here in the US weren't so darn straight..............

[BigSwede]

There must be alternatives to the interstates?
The cars I was talking about ar not only used on the track but I guess the roads are diffrent here in Sweden/Europe. Lucky us.

[italcarguy]

too much toe out with wear the tires out quicker than negative camber (that's what i have noticed), which also wears a tire out (on the inside). some racer remount the tire inside out to get maximum usage out of a tire. some tire manufactures say you can do this with with directional tires without really noticing a performance difference.

[BigSwede]

Wait a minute, don't drag racing into this, thats a whole other story...
I'll show you why, this is why the inside wears on the front wheels of a track-car:
Link to picture

[papajam]

Seems we are all in agreement. For cars that are driven on a road course (not a drag strip), toe out tends to affect inside tire wear more than negative camber. On a street car, negative camber tends to have more of an affect on inside tire wear than does toe out.
The wear patterns of neg camber wear and toe wear are also quite different. Excessive toe will feather the tread; excessive camber won't. At least on a street car.

[BigSwede]

No, I'm still stubborn...

Toe-out (were talking lots of toe here) creates lots of more wear compared to camber even on a streetcar. At least over here where the roads actually force you to turn.

[papajam]

Well, if the toe out on turns is THAT far off, somethings amiss with the steering geometry.

[BigSwede]

Just answering the original post "But now, to the inverse: Having an inner shoulder wear in the tires must be only to the camber angle?, or also can be by a bad toe-in?"

I'm just saying that a toe-angle that is out of adjustment eats away on the tires more effectively then aggressively set camber...