Adding negative camber for trailer towing

[The motor guy]

My truck always wears the tires unevenly like a slanted roof on a house. I was told to have the alignment shop put in a couple degrees of negative camber to correct this. Opinions?

 

[gathermewool]

Does the inside or outside of the tire wear more? Front or rear?

If your suspension is loaded up, a negative camber is typically induced. This will result in more wear on the INSIDE of the tires.

Also, is there even the ability to adjust your camber by "a couple of degrees"? I could only get ~ -1 degree of camber on my previous STI and now ~1/2 degree of camber in my current Subies (without aftermarket camber bolts).

 

[ctechbob]

Fronts I assume? Is it because when you're towing there's less weight on the front of the truck and so you've actually gained positive camber on the fronts?

 

[Dave1027]

Don't need a "couple" of degrees. Should not need more than half degree of negative camber to even out the tread wear. Going to 2 degrees will probably make the insides wear. Basically you'd be going from one extreme to the other.

 

[gathermewool]

Assuming the OP is towing no more than rated load: would this load actually lift the front enough to add enough positive camber to result in excessive outside wear? That sounds odd.

 

[jhellwig]

If your truck is 4wd you have no adjustment other than toe with a solid front axle. (Unless they make them with that ability now).

 

[The motor guy]

It wears on the front tires and more on the outer half of the tire. Like I said a slanted roof. Actually it wears whether or not a trailer is attached or not. Done it since day one on this truck.

 

[ls1mike]

All the towing I have done I have never seen this. I have never seen anyone camber adjusted for it.

What are you towing? Do you have a weight distribution hitch? Is it your daily driver?

 

[The motor guy]

16ft trailer 1200 lbs of tongue weight, but like I said it wore the front tires this way regardless. When I first owned the truck or hardly towed a trailer

 

[mk378]

Have you ever had the truck's alignment checked?

 

[Tman220]

https://www.thurenfabrication.com/tech/alignment-and-handling.html

Sounds like this is a pretty common problem on those trucks. The Factory settings have too much Toe-in leading to a lot of the problems with outside tire wear.

 

[CharBaby]

/.../---F---\...\
L...............R

^^^With "F" being the front of the vehicle, is this Negative camber?...looking at the vehicle from straight on/standing in front? I ask because I want to make sure that I understand correctly due to thinking I was correct when explaining to others.

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by Char Baby
/.../---F---\...\
L...............R

^^^With "F" being the front of the vehicle, is this Negative camber?...looking at the vehicle from straight on/standing in front? I ask because I want to make sure that I understand correctly due to thinking I was correct when explaining to others.


Yes, that would be negative camber.

Lifting/taking load off the front wheels of a solid axle truck won't affect camber like it would with say, a car with a strut based IFS.

 

[CharBaby]

Thank you Skip!

 

[OVERKILL]

Generally, if I recall my conversations with Capriracer correctly, it's the toe that has a more profound impact on tire wear than camber. If you are toed-in, it's essentially dragging the outside edges of the front tires down the road, wearing them down. Toed-out of course does the opposite.

 

[4WD]

Starts with that

 

[Srt20]

Yeah, set the toe. Its super easy.

 

[The motor guy]

I told the alignment guy how the tires were wearing and how they've been wearing like this since day one of owning this truck. He took out some of the total for. So instead of it being at .36 he set it at .26 and said to watch it and make sure the inside of the tire doesn't start wearing. Lol I'll be smiling if I ever see that on this truck. Drove straight to the tire shop afterwards and bought 4 new tires.

 

[gathermewool]

took out some of the total what???

 

[The motor guy]

Toe. My bad.