Adjusting rear camber to reduce tire wear?

[jake1220]

So I had some Pilot Sport AS/3's installed exactly 10,000 miles ago (Stock Sizing). Also had an alignment done at the time. My front tires are still perfect. My rear tires are both very worn down on the insides. They are so bad that I am going to have to replace them before winters hits. I was going to blame the shop that did the alignment, but they did another one for free the other day and the specs that they used told them to go for around -1.8 degrees of camber in the rear. I feel like this is going to continue to kill any tire that I put on the car. Would anyone recommending a different camber setting for the rear? I just don't want to kill perfectly good tires so quickly.

[Kgolf31]

Toe is the wear item, not camber.

If you want traction, you'll want toe.

It is the name of the game, welcome to RWD.

[128Convertibleguy]

If you want better tire wear, why not go with stock BMW specs instead of Internet wisdom? I hear they have some experienced suspension engineers working for them.

I believe it's -1.3 degrees and 9 minutes toe per wheel. But don't trust that Internet wisdom either, your alignment shop will know.

Note that by choosing (wisely) the excellent AS/3s, you're already given up major grip over summer performance tires. Trying to get some back with off spec alignment seems to me to be the wrong approach. Note that you'll also want stock specs up front, those darn engineers designed the rear specs for that, and messing around with just one end could lead to some squirrely handling.

[jake1220]

That's what I went with. The stock BMW specs that NTB uses for the 135i. Turns out that -1.9 in the rear is within the acceptable range.

And yes I would rather not start experimenting with unpopular alignment settings. I just don't want to burn through all seasons within 10,000 miles anymore. Hopefully the corrected toe settings with fix the problem. My camber was pretty normal, but my toe was way off before the alignment yesterday.

[MightyMouseTech]

Originally Posted by jake1220

And yes I would rather not start experimenting with unpopular alignment settings. I just don't want to burn through all seasons within 10,000 miles anymore. Hopefully the corrected toe settings with fix the problem. My camber was pretty normal, but my toe was way off before the alignment yesterday.

Exactly. It is TOE that wears out tires, not camber. When the toe is out, you are literally dragging the tire sideways down the road.

[The Transporter]

Are your tires "cupping" on the inside? That would be an indicator of bad toe.

I am running about -0.8* camber in the rear, which my shop said was the minimum(!) they could get. The result vs. my previous -1.5* setting is better acceleration and better cornering rotation with less inside wheelspin (stock diff). It mates well with barely over a degree negative up front (M3 arms and pins pulled, only). 15k mi on PSS (about 5k on -1.5* setting) and only minimal inside wear bias. 0* toe all around.

YMMV