Slanted Rear Wheels

EyezOnMei · Post by **EyezOnMei** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 7:56 pm

Hi guys,
Just wondering if anyone knows why my rear wheels look like this (if you look at the car at ground level from the back)
/ \
instead of | | like my front wheels.
They're not THAT angled, but I notice they're not straight like my front wheels are. They're on a slight angle and seem to be leaning inwards towards the middle of the car. These are only for my rear wheels and the angle is very slight. I had a full alignment/balance a couple of months ago, and I noticed this only a week or so after that.
Is it really bad? How can I fix it? Here's another diagram to try and show what I mean:
Front wheels | |
Rear wheels / \ but obviously not so extreme...
Any help appreciated!!!

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 8:06 pm

You mean you have a different camber on your rears.
This is a good thing. Being a front wheel drive the FTO suffers from understeer, so you need a slight negative camber on the front and heaps of pos camber on the back to slightly loose the rear to overcome the understeer. I just spent a lot on the complete suspension trying to get that settup.
Jeff

elmo · Post by **elmo** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 8:21 pm

Imagine your wheel is fixed to the car (no springs), so as the body rolls (or squats as the case maybe) the inside wheel gets flatter on the road...
The outer wheel is also at an "aggressive" angle so if you begin to slide out of the corner it only flattens the wheel onto the road more and gives more grip.

MADFTO · Post by **MADFTO** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 9:27 pm

That's normal EyezOnMei.

What the technical term for that is camber if you didn't pick that up from Jeff's Post.

I'll probably end up re-hashing what the other two have said, but negative camber (where the outside of the wheel is relativity higher than the inside of the tyre) is good for grip, but gives you a smaller contact patch in a straight line.

Imagine your car is being pushed from the side, your tyres have a slight tendancy to roll over a little due to the lateral forces. now angling the tyre a little towards negative means that when you turn a corner, the lateral forces will make the tyre roll over a little so you have a larger contact patch. This means you'll have more grip around the corner in essence.

FTO have standard on the rear tires a negative bias of 1 degree. Front wheels are neutral due to the fact that you want as much tyre on the ground when in a straight line on the drive wheels =)

So yeah, nothing to worry about =) unless it looks like that half the tyre isn't touching the ground =)

EyezOnMei · Post by **EyezOnMei** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 10:33 pm

Oh thank goodness! Because I thought "oh crap", what am I doing to my car.
You know, I really should notice these little things *before* I buy the car.

Thanks so much guys, means I can rest so much easier now!

Rusty12 · Post by **Rusty12** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 11:38 pm

The only bad thing with that though is that your tyres need rotating more because they wear more on one side.

rxboy · Post by **rxboy** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 11:56 pm

I noticed the same thing about my rear wheels the other day. Was going to do a wheel alignment to make sure.

By the way, I read in one article that front wheel drive cars wear out their front tyres as much as 3 times faster than the rears

G1 · Post by G1 » Thu Oct 09, 2003 12:18 pm

what madfto said was spot on. i have actually put some negative camber on my fronts as well for better cornering.

in terms of the tyre wear, if you corner hard often like me, and you leave your camber on neutral, you will actually wear out the outside of the tyre quicker, so it makes sense to put some negative camber to prolong your tyre life in this case.

G_A_V · Post by **G_A_V** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 7:13 pm

fwds wear out 3 times as much as rear wheels !! thats a lot ! though ill confirm that seeing as i need new tyres every 2 months!

elmo · Post by **elmo** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 9:02 pm

hmmm, wore my first set of rears out twice as fast as the fronts....

G_A_V · Post by **G_A_V** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 1:36 am

hahah maybewhen you drive you should put the handbrake down !

elmo · Post by **elmo** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 9:04 pm

Rarely use the handbrake for turning....
but the back wheels have trouble keeping up around corners sometimes

GPXXX · Post by **GPXXX** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 6:09 pm

by the way, negative camber can look very cool on your car, heheheh...

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Slanted Rear Wheels

Slanted Rear Wheels

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