Rear wheel alignment

[Maggiemae]

Dave

:confused: Just had to replace both back tires due to an alignment issue. both were out about 5 degrees and had worn out the inside half of the rear T1S's. I don't know how I missed that as I am pretty careful with the car but has this been an issue on the S :doh: The car has around 37,000Kms and I have had it since new with no bumps or pothole hits;) A few spins on the track but no excursions into the tullies so I am at a loss to figure out why. Any thoughts

Thanks

Bob

ps. not going to make San Fran this year so hold up the great white north's reputation:D

[dfws2k]

you never check your alignment/tire wear?

[repiv]

Wow, that's over double the usual camber numbers. I'm surprised it was able to get that much. It's not likely the camber got that way from road imperfections. That wouldn't cause them to change so equally. I'd say the last alignment was done that way.
The S2000 normally wears out the inner 1/2 of the rear tread anyway. I advise people to watch the wear so that once it gets to about 1/3 to 1/2 gone, you "flip" the tire and get a bit more out of them before having to scrap them.
When was the last time you had an alignment done and did you get a printout of what they dialed in? How long did those tires last (kms)? Even with OEM alignment specs, rear tires will usually last between 12K kms to 20K kms anyway. If you flip them at the right time, you might extract another 3 to 4 K. How did the car handle with that camber?

[Maggiemae]

Wow, that's over double the usual camber numbers. I'm surprised it was able to get that much. It's not likely the camber got that way from road imperfections. That wouldn't cause them to change so equally. I'd say the last alignment was done that way.
The S2000 normally wears out the inner 1/2 of the rear tread anyway. I advise people to watch the wear so that once it gets to about 1/3 to 1/2 gone, you "flip" the tire and get a bit more out of them before having to scrap them.
When was the last time you had an alignment done and did you get a printout of what they dialed in? How long did those tires last (kms)? Even with OEM alignment specs, rear tires will usually last between 12K kms to 20K kms anyway. If you flip them at the right time, you might extract another 3 to 4 K. How did the car handle with that camber?

:doh: This is the first car I have ever owned that the alignment was ever off and certainly with so little mileage. So to answer the original question it has never been done. (37,000Kms). It is running on 17 inch TOYO tires and works rims that came off a S2000. It seems to have been very sudden as I did a visual check of the tires before we went to Lake George last September and they were visually fine. Since then the car has been driven sparingly so maybe 1000Kms since the inspection. Drive wise it seemed to be fine and although I have been running the R compound tires recently I have put the new T1R's on and have not had a lot of chance to try them out. :cool:

[Maggiemae]

you never check your alignment/tire wear?

:yikes: Never had to in the past original owner with 37,000Kms not miles and a babied car other than track days:D seems a bit premature to me (obviously wrong:doh: ) But tires are like gas and oil just the cost of having fun:D

[repiv]

It could also be aggravated by the type of tires and the offset of the rims you're using. If the offset is low, you can create a longer lever and camber could be exaggerated. When you realized it was set at 5 degrees, did you have the shop set it right? I thinking that if you ever went back to the OEM rims, your alignment may be off again if you do it now with the Work rims on.

[JonBoy]

I don't even think you can get 5 degrees of negative camber (per side) on the stock suspension without aftermarket camber plates. Can you give us your exact alignment specs (before you had it properly aligned)? I'm wondering what was "5"...

Caster and toe are set to around 5 (degrees and mm, respectively) at the rear in stock alignment, so that wouldn't necessarily be off.

[darkside]

You can actually get -5 , I was able to pull off -4.5 pretty easy on a friends s2k . It was obviously lowered (alot).

If you were able to get -5 on stock suspension then something has to be wrong.

[Maggiemae]

:cool: Ok here we go with the specs of the wheels and tires;
Fronts 215/45/ZR17 91W Toyo T1S works emotion rims 17x7JJ 42 offset
Rears 235/40/ZR17 94Y Toyo T1R Works emotion rims 17x8JJ 47 offset

As T1S are no longer available I had to go with the T1R for the replacement tires

:nervous: The current alignment was done with the 16 inch Advan AO48 R compound on stock rims

I do not have the specs that the car was set to or the exact numbers the wheels were out as the Technician was not specific but said around 5 degrees out which could mean 3-4 as well:think:

[repiv]

Please clarify something for me. When the alignment was found to be -5, was this done with the Work rims? Those Work rims are shy about +18 mm of offset from stock. Additionally, some rims make it nearly impossible to do a proper alignment due to the equipment being unable to clamp onto them well enough. Your Works may be such a rim and an alignment done with them could be problematic. I just came back from a Washington coast drive and one of the cars had aftermarket rims that the alignment shop could not and would not attempt to do an alignment on. If the shop did try, they may have dialed in settings that were incorrect even though the numbers may have come out looking "OK".
When you say the current alignment, do you mean the latest one done with the stock rims? What I'm getting at is if you had an alignment done using one type of rim (different specs and design - wheel alignment equipment mounting issues), then checked it later using another type of rim (stock in this case), what the tech sees with one rim may not be a good reflection of what may have been set with another rim.
I think the best you can hope for is to have the alignment done with stock rims, then put on your aftermarket rims and tires. However, the low offset could still create some odd wear patterns.

An afterthought ......................... those Toyos are 10 mm narrower (20 mm narrower if you compare to the CR) than stock. A narrower tire will create a higher % tread width wear than a wider tire since there is less tire to carry the weight of the car. We generally do get noticable inner tread wear with the normal camber the car has, so if you have a narrower tire, then more of the inner tread will wear.

[Maggiemae]

Dave

:cool: The alignment was done on the stock rims with the track tires installed. I never had an alignment done with the Works rims/tires on the car.:confused:

[repiv]

Well then, that's a mystery. I'm inclined to think tha tthe last alignment was not done correctly.

[Maggiemae]

:confused: Well then the Honda factory is to blame as the car has never had an alignment that I am aware of:think: And since I have had the car since new I should know:cool:

thanks for the input I will keep a closer eye on it from now on:o

[repiv]

Is it possible the shop that told you that you had -5 on the rear camber was exaggerating? I just can't see the alignment going off that much and so evenly on both sides.

[Maggiemae]

:confused: Well it was a Honda dealership but having said that they were obviously out as both tires were equally worn so whether it was 1 degree or 5 degrees they were toast:mad:

[repiv]

May be it was the tires. Monitor the next set.

[dlq04]

:confused: Well it was a Honda dealership but having said that they were obviously out as both tires were equally worn so whether it was 1 degree or 5 degrees they were toast:mad:

They should have provided you with a spec sheet showing all the alignment specs - before and after any alignement.

[dfws2k]

maybe they were adding the camber? and it was -2.5 on each rear side?