Hey all, I jsut had the alignment done on my car due to it being out and wearing one of the rear tires down to the tread on the inside edge of the tire. I got new tires and had an alignment done on the car. After getting it back, it appears that the rear tires are tilted in at the top. This seems to be what I had before which lead to the excessive wear on the inside of the tires. My question is what should the camber be for the tires? I understand that a little bit of camber is needed to help the car keep on center (along with a bit of toe). So, I am expecting some camber. But how much should I be looking at. Looking at the before and after spec sheets (kinda hard to tell which is which as both sheets are marked "final"), but I am basing the beginning one on the fact that this sheet has the toes out and the final sheet has them set to 0 degrees.

All the following values are in degrees (before/after)

Left Front
caster: 2.3/2.4
camber: -1.3/-1.4
toe 0.05/0.00

Right front
caster: 2.3/2.4
camber: -1.7/-1.8
toe: 0.20/0.00

Total front toe: 0.25/0.00

Left rear
camber: -1.9/-2.0
toe: -0.40/0.20

Right rear
camber: -2.1/-2.5
toe: -0.65/0.20

Total rear toe (thrust angle): 0.00

As the car sits now (with slightly wider tires than before, ie 235/45R17's vice the 225/45R17's), I have noticed that the car has a tendency now to find ruts in the road. It doesn't happen all the time, but there are a few places where I can feel the car shift a little bit in the front quickly followed by the same feeling in the rear. I can only explain it best by the feeling you get when you are in a construction zone and you are changing lanes from one that has been recently paved to the slightly lower lane that has not been paved.

I will see if I can measure the camber in my driveway using a plum-bob and a micrometer and see if I can get the current camber.

I guess my question is this: are these number where everyone else's cars are aligned to? To me, the rear camber seems out. Even the spec sheet shows all of the cambers in the "red region", which I would assume is a bad region.

I will be interested in hearing what others have to say.

 

My ex 2002 3.0 AWD X type tyres suffered wear on the inside edges too even though tolerance was within acceptable range...its common
The Jag tolerances are very wide so can suffer inner edge wear even when in tolerance.Had my front toe set to straight ahead which seemed to cure the problem somewhat but had slightly less feel from the front.

 

Buck, if I can find a level surface, I would be tempted on resetting the rear camber to say -0.5 to -1.0 degrees. If I remember right, the camber adjustment is near the center of the car. So, adjusting it will be easy.

 

I had a nightmare about this some time ago, and was told by Jaguar that they design the right camber to compensate for the drift due to the angle of the roads in North America. Here are my printout specs left/right:
Manufacturers Specs | My Specs
Frt Caster 2.48 +-.5 | 2.5/2.5
Frt Camber -.53 +-.5 | -.05 /-.95
Frt Toe -.05 +-.09 | -.05/-.05
Frt Total Toe -.1 +-.17 | -.1/-.1

Rear Toe .13 +.07 -.04 | .1/.1
Rear Camber -.7 +-.5 | -.65/-.95
Rear Total Toe .25 +.13 -.08 | .2/.2

My Right Camber is excessive but barely in specs and can only be changed by moving front and back subframe to the left (front is more than the rear), you might have a similar problem and with the wider tires it is exaggerating the situation. Mine is in specs but I would like to look at nudging the subframe over slightly at some point. Other than that you could look at changing the suspension.

 

canman, thanks, that is what I was looking for. Looks like I have a service advisor to be talking to tomorrow. I knew I should have watched this shop a little bit closer as I didn't get a good vibe from the place to begin with. But, because they were a major store in the area, I figured they probably knew what they were doing. That will teach me not to question them a bit harder. I'll let you know what I get from them tomorrow.

 

Ok, did a bit of looking at the rear end. There are no adjustments (for the moment) for the camber. Looking at the pieces, nothing appears to be bent or abused. I even lifted the suspension slightly to see if I could find any joints with some play in them. No dice. I know there is a common part that wears first and seems to correct this. Which part is it? I want to say that it is the lower/forward arm.

The other idea that I am tossing around at the moment is modifying the upper arm mount out at the wheel. What I would end up doing is elongating the hole where the mount is, obtaining a piece that would fit the offset washer and then welding this piece in place. This should give me a few degrees of adjustment and get the car back in line. The actual mod I don't think will be hard to install. The bigger question is how easy will it be to obtain the offset bolt to fit the upper arm. I figure the small box that the offset washer will come in is probably obtainable as a kit for some other vehicle. Worst case, I will run to a junk yard, find a wrecked vehicle that has these pieces and then go from there.

Gotta love having to overcome the shortcuts taken at the factory.

 

Thermo, have you had your dealer give his $.02 regarding your concerns? They are familiar with these issues and may have a way to resolve them, perhaps even something like the mod you describe. How are your control arm bushings? Have they been replaced?

I haven't had caster/camber problems, but I did have the toe set to as close to zero as possible and have had very even tire wear all the way around ever since.

The "tramlining" (following ruts in the road) does indeed get worse with the wider the tire. Generally speaking anyway. At least the X doesn't have torque steer on top of it! That gets real hairy - FWD + wide tires + gobs of power. But I digress....

 

If there is no damage and no work was done, then how did your camber get so far out? Maybe the shop that you are going to, can't read the alignment properly (maybe they mounted the reflectors incorrectly etc). For me in the end they moved the subframe slightly as much as they could to just barely bring the right back it into specs, and as I said I'll revisit this again. However your specs are too far out for nudging.

 

canman, as for the alignment being out in the way of camber, atleast on the rear wheels, they are only claiming it at 2.0 and 2.5 degrees, but looking at it, might be more. I need to measure it. As for worn components, it is very likely. I just rolled over 100K miles and I doubt any of the bushings have been replaced. I had the back driver's side wheel off and I tried moving the components around and couldn't get any movement out of the pieces. Hence why I was asking about what things could be worn as I was thinking about replacing them first and then going from there. Granted, still leaning towards custom upper control arms for the rear just to have the adjustability should I want it. I even tried tugging on the rear clip to see if that was loose and no movement either. So, I am not sure what is wrong at this moment in time. Granted, I think the true test is pulling off the passenger side rear tire as there is a slight clunk coming from there plus the camber is worse there. So, we'll see.

 

at the inner end of the lower arms ( near the differential ) there are eccentric adjusters....

 

Jimmy, those adjustments are only for adjusting the toe of the rear wheels. They will not fix the camber. I have already looked at that. Hence why I am looking at making an adjustable upper control arm. That way I can have the toe set and adjusting the camber will not affect the toe.