Rep Power: 0

Recently I had new tires installed. When I looked at the old front tires and the inner part I could definitely see that there was excessive wear there suggesting that the camber had gone negative. It appears that the camber cannot be adjusted and is set at the factory? the tolerance being 0 + or - 0.5 degrees. I bought one of those camber tools , the one with the bubbles and after calibration and having the vehicle as level as possible on my driveway I obtained the following readings. Front left ( drivers side) neg 1.75 degrees and the passenger side neg. 1.25 deg. I removed the wheels and followed the instructions for the two camber adjustment bolts that I obtained and made the necessary corrections . Then off to the alignment shop I went. On their , more accurate , alignment machine my adjustments were within tolerance for the passenger side but the drivers side was off 0.1 of a degree. I kinda felt proud of myself for bringing the camber back close to specs. The right toe was off and so I asked the tech what he had done to bring the camber back to spec for the drivers side . He said he loosened up the bolts a bit , tug on the strut and tightened things back. I was ok with that. Furthermore he said that he sees this all the time , camber going out of spec, and as much as there isn't much room for adjustment for those bolts that cannot be adjusted (as the bolt holes don't support adjusting) he is able to manipulate the various bolts thus bringing the alignment back into specs, suggesting that I did not have to install those special camber adjustment bolts. Opinions anyone?
Also is it possible that there is wear and tear on the various bushings in the suspension that would cause the camber change? Comments?

 
Rep Power: 225

The only camber adjustment from the factory is exactly what the tech did. However, you'll never be able to get 1.75 or 1.25 degrees of camber. You likely have some bad suspension components somewhere causing the negative camber. Maybe some bad control arm bushings or bent knuckle/strut.

 
Rep Power: 0

Yeah , I was thinking that something is wearing. Oddly though the visible wear was same on both sides and I am wondering if the replacement axles ( both sides at 25k , under warranty) had anything to do with it. Nevertheless I am somewhat pleased that I was able to bring the camber back to specs and I will be checking periodically to see any further degradation.

 
Rep Power: 0

Its been 5 years and almost 43k miles since I did the camber adjustment and I must say that front tires are wearing rather well. I have no other front end issues.