Fish
Well-Known Member
DarkSideAccord said:if u look from the back, and u see ur tires look tht / \, tht's camber
if it looks like \ /, u have a toe (or at least tht's wat i think)
What you're describing there is negative vs. positive camber. Looking from the back, if the tops of your tires are pointing inwards like / \, that's negative camber, and the opposite is positive. Camber will make one side of the tire wear before the rest, but it's not so bad. To a certain point, negative camber will help you handle better, but figuring out how much better is a bit more complicated. You won't want positive camber at all.
Toe is when the front of your tires are pointing inwards or outwards in different directions when you look from the top. If they're pointing inwards, then you've got toe-in, and then you've got toe-out if they're pointing outwards. There're handling advantages for toe-in and toe-out, but having toe-in or toe-out will cause accelerated wear on your tires no matter what. Your tires are trying to go different directions, so they'll be scrubbing on the road surface.
When you go for an alignment, be sure to get your toe set to zero for best tire life. My alignment shop set my rear toe to -0.10 degree just for added high-speed stability, but front is set at 0. Our cars will usually get some toe-in when lowered, so watch out for that. Camber is not as bad, as long as it's still close to factory specs. At around 2" F and 1.5" R lowering for my car, my camber is around 1 degree all around, pretty much at the maximum factory specs. We don't have any camber adjustments stock, so we either have to add it in, or live with the camber.
Well, that was a mouthful...
