Is it true that if your vertical link is bad that you can have inner tire wear on the front end?

 

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You are talking the vertical link to your sway bar? If that is the case, then no. That will only cause the car to lean a little more in corners and whatnot. So, unless you take side street corners at 40 mph, the amount of added wear is going to be very minimal. If this is something else, then, I am not sure what piece you are talking about.

 

Ok thanks a tech was telling me that could be a cause for my front tire inner wear. I have -2.2 camber on right side and -1.5 on left side.

 

Nox, if your camber is off that far, you have another issue. Yes, the camber will cause excessive tire wear. But, it isn't because of the vertical link. There is something else going on. Because you have negative camber on both sides, you are most likely looking at bad struts or the joint where the strut mounts to the spindle was not assembled correctly and that is sitting at a slight angle. Some members have been able to oblong the bolt holes for the strut bearing (the 3 nuts you see on top of the strut towers when you open the hood) and by sliding the strut bearing around, they were able to get a better camber number on their next alignment.

 

Great, do I have to take the weight off by lifting it off the ground to adjust those tower bolts? And when you say oblong the bolts what that entaile exactly?

 

I bought some lower control arms so I'm guessing it's probably not that then. I did speak with a tech he said may be front suspension is tired/worn out so it's sagging just wanted to make sure that's a likely cause.

 

It's never a bad thing to replace front suspension parts on a car that's 10+ years old.

 

Yeah there is no "vertical link" in the front suspension as the only thing vertical is the strut itself, the hub, and the sway bar end link which won't effect tire wear. So, if I were you I would take my car to a different shop to get an opinion. Aside from what thermo said, it could also be bad strut mount bearings.

 

Ok never replaced those before, is it hard? I got a lift so I probably need to take the weight off to change those?

 

Nox, the holes that need to be oblonged are the ones in the sheetmetal strut tower, not the strut bearing bolts. Yes, you should take the weight of the car off of the struts when you go to adjust the bolts. This will make things much easier to deal with.

As for changing the strut bearing, you are going to end up pulling the strut out of the car as you will have to compress the spring so you can remove the nut holding the strut bearing in place. Then you can ease off on the spring so you can remove the parts.

 

Is the coil a possibility ?

 

Nox, the coil is not going to affect the alignment of the car as the coil is only supporting the weight, it is not controlling where the components sit. This is where the strut and control arm come into play. If you want to see this at play, take a coil spring and put a decent amount of weight on the top of the spring (say 200-300 pounds) and see how wobbly the weight is on top of the spring (did I mention to keep your feet clear of the weight?). Besides, if the coil had an issue, most likely the corner of the car would be sitting much lower than the others and making you think that the car had a flat tire.

 

I had a bearing and a bad tierod and it made the tires wear in the front inner. I changed them and all was good

 

Ok because I had it looked at the front end is sitting about an inch lower than the specs, so it was suggested that the coil and strut were causing sag which in turn made the tires dip inwards. So a new bearing and tie rod would fix the problem? Sounded like it worked for you dr dome

 

Also can this be affecting my breaks? It seems my rotors keep getting warped. After I install new ones it's fine for a while but the breaks eventually get shaky again.

 

Nox, rotors will warp normally from a few reasons. The big one being from getting your brakes hot after repeated hard/long brakings and then running through a puddle and splashing only part of the rotor. This will cause the rotor to cool unevenly and then this causes the rotor to start flexing side to side. This then causes the rotor to heat unevenly in the future, leading to the flexing occurring more and more.

The second way that rotors will warp is if you unevenly tighten the lug nuts. This induces stresses into the rotor which then will cause the rotor to start flexing and you get the above to happen.

The last one is the rotors simply are made with inherent stresses in the rotor. This then leads to warpage over time as the stresses are never released and start pushing parts of the rotor around.

 

Well one inch is a lot of drop which in turn puts a lot more ware on the inner tires. I would check the bearings and tie rods first, then if they check out then the struts maybe the reason.

 

Ok I'll probably try that first the bearing your referring too is the suspension bearing at the top by the coil?