Alignment .. toe-out

devo230 · 05-17-2005, 07:30 PM

The inside of the front tires seems to be wearing slightly more that the outsides. Can I tweak the tie rods in a half a turn or so on each side without causing a toe-in situation?

ZOA NOM · ZOA NOM's Garage

Have you measured toe? Camber may be the culprit.

JTL · JTL's Garage

You need to drive the car harder through turns to wear the tires more evenly

bigchillcar · bigchillcar's Garage

gotta be your camber...i adjusted my toe perfectly a year and a half ago, but my front tires show slightly more inside wear as well..it's the camber..i believe it improves handling in turns at the expense of uneven tire wear, but i'm not a track racer..just a guy with a porsche in a redneck state.
ryan

901/05 · 901/05's Garage

camber. Your front camber is set at an agressive negative setting. Which is common.

If your problem was an agressive positive toe in....it would scrub the center of your front tires tread pattern into a wierd (but, mostly center of tread patterm) scrub.

Ryan is right.

Perform a tire rotation and watch what happens. Shawn.

devo230 · 05-18-2005, 08:16 AM

I think all of you are right. It's my daily car so I don't drive it that hard, although I'd like to. I could drive a couple of DEs a year to smooth out the wear J The fronts are 205s with the back tires at 225s and different wheel sizes, so no rotation. I’d like to drop the front about 1”, so maybe I can do the drop and adjust the camber somehow all at once.

Superman · 05-18-2005, 08:33 AM

My front has negative camber. More than most daily drivers, but less than a track car. The rear has even more negative camber, of course. My rear tires wear more on the inside than the outside, but the front does not have nearly as much uneven wear as the back.

I would disagree with the notion that front wheels of a daily driver should be toed out. Sure, it makes the car darty giving the illusion of responsiveness, but I do not believe cornering is actually enhanced. I believe the net effect is simply the dartiness. Dartiness is not a happy characteristic of a daily driver and as I say, I think it's unnecessary from a performance perspective. My suggestion would be to toe the front wheels slightly in, as they are supposed to be. Then, as many of you know, road forces will bring those slightly toed-in wheels into parallel while the car is moving. With this condition, your negatvie camber (which is important from a performance perspective) will not do as much to accelerate tire wear on the inside. A little, but not much.