For the record I am not disagreeing with Tom on alignment (he did the last alignment on my pickup, which had been done four times previously and screwed up every time. It has been great ever since), but it has been my experience that camber is the big killer of tires. Toe-in will cause a scrubbing wear pattern across the entire tread area of the tire, camber will cause wear on either the inside or the outside of the tire depending on whether the camber is excessively negative or positive. I agree with Tom that too much toe-in (or toe-out) will cause tire wear, and if really excessive will kill the tire faster then about any other setting. We had a guy with a Dodge Dart that would eat the inside of one tire and the outside of the other. We must have aligned the thing three or four times. Finally the service manager came out into the shop really PO'd and demanded to know why we could get every other alignment right, but not this Dodge. The customer was trailing the service manager and weighed north of 350 lbs! We aligned the car with the guy sitting in it and never had another issue with it's alignment.
LMAO I too thought the same thing " no wonder he cant get it aligned" I have a very dry sense of humor
I ALWAYS did that John when a larger person needed an alignment on their small car. IF they weren't around or could sit in the car I had a BIG ANVIL & some dumbbell weights I would put on the floor on the left side. Makes a HUGE diff. especially with a weighty person driving a small car or mini van. When doing an alignment on a race car I would give it as much positive caster I could & lifted the front of the car 2" to stimulate the car going down the track at top end. Then I would set the camber at zero & the toe at slightly toed in by a couple thou so there is little or no drag. Seems to make a diff. Tom T.
Just a quick update for everyone on this. Firstly a huge shout out to Tom. He sent me modified reaction rod bushings. My extended A arms were installed (1" extended and I now have to half an inch of shims LOL (I was contemplating just a half inch extension, but wanted to make sure I had enough room for adjusting). Car has been rolling on zero degree camber, positive 3 degrees caster and 2mm of toe-in now for several months and basically zero tyre wear. Thank you all for your help.
Going from -2 to +3 is a HUGE gain - that's great! My car is -1.5 ~ -.5 factory... hope I can see similar gains.
Glad I was able to help Chris. The results are the proof of doing these kind of things for years & thinking out of the box. It's ALWAYS a satisfying feeling when one is able to help someone. Tom T.
