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Excessive inside tyre wear after lowering


vroom811

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Was wondering if anyone had lowered their car and experienced any problems?

 

I fitted Whiteline lowering springs to the standard shocks which gave a 25mm drop all round.  Took it to get a wheel alignment and the before and after figures are the picture below.

 

I'm no suspension expert but a few things stand out to me:

 

A.  Front wheel camber is now -1.32' and -0.56'.     I know camber is not adjustable on the front without aftermarket parts but if you drop both sides by the same amount you'd expect the same amount of camber change each side not different amounts?

 

B. Rear wheel camber was -2.34' and -2.17' after lowering and the shop adjusted it to -2.25' and 2.24'.  Nissan Service Manual advises no more than 2.05'.  I believe rear camber is adjustable somewhat via eccentric bolts but why these final values were chosen alludes me?

 

1705053658_alignmentafterloweringspringsfitted.JPG.7511ed15246dde645aba2a79ed369109.JPG

 

Anyway, onto the real problem.  After just a few hundred miles I've worn out the inside edge of both my rear tyres.   Treads were about 2.3mm all round before lowering but now  the outside is 2.2mm, middle 1.6mm but inside just 0.7mm.

 

IMG_2717.JPG.58f12270b624c0d098dd5c944aafa7eb.JPG

 

Can anyone help me out with my questions below please?

 

1. I assume the gain in rear camber have caused the wear problems.   Has anyone else experienced this after lowering?  If so how did you fix it?

 

2.  I though lowering the car would make it roll less (lower center of gravity) but it actually rolls more now.   Doing a bit of research i think this could be because the lowering springs have caused the car's roll center to increase thus causing a larger roll moment.  Anyone else experience this?  If so how did you fix it.  I see Hardrace sell Roll Centre Kits, do these work?

 

3. I'm assuming to sort the suspension geometry out I'm going to need adjustable camber arms at the front and adjustable rear camber and toe arms?

 

Big thanks everyone. Neil. 

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As Jallen28 said above, tarmac’s camber arm and toe bolt kit is ideal for the rear. You won’t be able to change the toe arm as the spring is seated on it.

 

Your final values on the rear are likely the best camber adjustment with the stock eccentric bolt, you’re not able to get to OE spec on stock hardware if you drop the car too much.

 

I’m experiencing more wear on the inside too after lowering. I do plan on getting adjustable arms on the front and back to dial in the camber to see if that sorts it.
 

 

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  • 4 months later...

So just an update to complete this thread.  Turns out the place I took the car to do the alignment did an awful job.   The alignment was actaully even worse than the printout - front wheels were facing different directions and the rears had far too much toe in (40 minutes!)

 

I took it to TIYG and did the alignment myself and the problems I had are gone.   It even handles better!   Fuel economy has shot up from about 26 mpg on the motorway to 30 mpg.   

 

For those intersted I took Nissans middle settings for toe and did 4 minutes of toe in on all 4 wheels.   Front camber is currently negative 1.75 degrees front (it's not adjustable) and I left the rear camber at negative 2.5 degrees as the bolts were seized!   May buy front camber arms to get the front camber to 2.5 degrees and may tackle the bolts to bring the rear camber in in bit.

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Camber doesn't wear tyres that excessively, toe does as you've now found out. I ran much lower then that for easily 3 years and must have covered around 15k miles without any hint of wear on my tyres as the alignment was spot on, and this was only with aftermarket toe bolts at the rear

 

Camber will cause wear over the life of a tyre on the inside edge as your decreasing the contact patch on the road, toe will wear tyres as you're basically dragging them down the road rather then rotating. 

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