I'm wondering who would want to let a car go down the road with positive camber on both front tires. Camber can influence tire wear over time BUT not nearly as fast as having excessive toe. Camber is basically the measurement that a tire is tilted from dead vertical like show in the image below.



As you can see in green is negative camber, red is positive camber, and black is zero camber/dead vertical.

Basically when running +0.2 degrees of camber, you'd be reducing your tire's contact patch since it would want to "fold over" itself (not literally but trying to make a point). So for example: If you're running +0.2 degrees front camber, you turn and the positive camber increases to (pulling numbers out the air here to help make point) +0.4 to +0.5 degrees during cornering which is putting more of the vehicle's weight on the center and outer treaded portions of the tire rather then try to distribute the weight evenly ALL across the tire. Still "streetable" just sloppy in my honest opinion.

With your tires at slightly negative camber degree like -0.3 degrees for example. You'd still have plenty of tire contacting the road in a straight line and effectively speaking would have a more uniform (or more of your tire's treads for lack of better words) contacting the road during cornering in comparison to the positive camber spec you mentioned.

Now as mkane mentioned, something is amiss since the can't/haven't gotten your camber spec closer to each other. Either they don't know what they're doing, haven't attempted anything/being lazy, or maybe your camber bolt needs to be readjusted in its slot to allow for a more camber to be added/taken out. And also like mkane said, they do of course have to put toe back in spec when adjusting camber (it'll be thrown off if they didn't) and the toe spec is indeed zero degrees for the front axle.

 

If possible I try to even things up in regards to camber... then again, I am OCD and drive my Fit rather "spirited" at times.

Do the tires' camber need to be even? No... but it helps when they are since the tread can wear more evenly on that axle opposed to having one tire with thread wearing evenly all across and the other looking like someone just ran a hot knife over the inside row of treads.

Is having -1 degree of camber a bit excessive? Likely on the outer side of the camber spec window but eh... it depends on the daily driving situation and how you drive (IE: How hard/aggressive you corner). If you're doing a lot of highway or straight line driving, expect to see the inner tread portion of that tire to wear more than the rest since it has the most contact with the road most of the time. If you daily drive on switch backs, twisty roads, etc. it wouldn't be as prominent but likely noticeable. Again, it goes on the driving situation and how you drive.

 

Hmmm, makes sense. I just booked in at the first suspension place i started tuning for tomorrow. When they gave me measurements over a week ago, it seemed spot on, the tyres were equal and it was -0.9 & -0.8 and both tyres sat nicely inside the guards very symmetric. After i took the car to a racing dude, he adjusted it for me (without me asking) and since then it has been a nightmare trying to get the camber balanced on both sides.

After going to four different suspension places, i am back to where i started. The first one actually did what i asked whereas the other ones just did what they thought was best. The only reason i walked away from the first place is because they lowered my car instead of raising it and asked me to pay $50 to raise it. I should have just paid $50, LOL, three suspension places and $200 after, i am back to where i started

 

Oh and when the camber was -0.9 & -0.8, the drive was pretty awesome, i was doing U turns in places i usually had to do three point turns. The car was handling very nicely on corners. Not anymore, damn it


Now i am wondering whether i should ask them to make it -0.9 & -0.8 or just ask them to make the tyres sit flush with my guards? what do you guys reckon ?

 

I am almost to that point where I am gonna say :

F@#$ this, just put it all back to factory again. I still have my factory suspension and rims in my garage. What a head ache


I live in nowhere land, impossible to find someone who knows what he is doing damn it .... Maybe i should take a drive to sydney and get someone knowledgeable out there to fix it for me.

 

"Racing dude" eh? Does he think he know's what he is doing?

But in all seriousness though, why would he even adjust your camber for it being basically within spec (even if its in the other perimeter) ESPECIALLY without bringing it to your attention? I would have torn him a new one for that (again, I'm OCD about my Fit which is why I do my own alignments and most maintenance luckily ^.^).

Go ahead and give that other place a try, even if they lowered your Fit instead of raising. There was likely miscomunication somewhere in there and I think that they should eat that 50 bucks for that. They raised your collars on the coilovers WHICH lowered the car in the process not the other way around.

 

Moar negative camber of course! -0.8 or -0.9 should be plenty fine and still be in the "green" so to speak. You can of course get more negative camber but that's when the factors of additional wear of the inner portion of the tires as well as possible (not likely but not going to exclude it) caster adjustment may come into play. (I haven't experienced/witnessed this depth of an alignment yet so I can't be specific)

 

Yeah and i brought the car back to him and asked him to adjust it the next day and he was standing over all proud and asking me with an attitude " so whatchu think now - Looks pretty damn good". At that very moment, had i told him that visually the camber is wrong, he would have been insulted. I thought nevermind, moving right along to the second racing dude . They are overconfident and arrogant and don't do what you ask, they just do what they think is best.


Will do, booked in for tomorrow afternoon. Funnily enough they were the place i would least expect to do a good job but after doing the rounds, trying racing dudes, steering shop, suspension shop, the little guy seem to be more competent and giving me what i ask for.

Collar you say huh, i see, i see, makes a lot of sense. Maybe he did raise it but due to the collars mis communication happened. (I should have just paid the $50, grrrrr)

Well, it's been a long week of living and learning, i have learnt a lot and by the time i am done, i will know them all

 

Sadly that sounds just about right! Did he get his training through Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport?

A real alignment tech would have asked what the concern is regarding the vehicle alignment (lowering would be why), test drove the vehicle prior to aligning it to get a feel of how it drove, performed the alignment, TEST DRIVE AGAIN to verify that the alignment was performed correctly and steering/suspension feedback wise feels fine prior to giving it back to the customer.


** <---- Skip down for cliff notes when you see that for short answer

Yeah, that is for sure.

**The reason why I mention the collars is since the spring is sitting on the lower perch in the torsion beam, the adjustment sleeve (which has the collars) is sitting on top of the spring, and the upper spring perch (mounted to the chassis) is sitting on top of the collar... So the adjustment sleeve is sandwiched between the actual spring and upper spring perch.**

Since the collars ride on the adjustment sleeve that is sitting on top of the vehicle's rear spring, threading the collars upward (when looking at it installed) will reduce the distance of where the top of the adjustment sleeve meets the upper spring perch and the bottom collar that meets the spring, thus lowering the ride height for that corner. The opposite is true if you were to move the collars downward.

You can also change the suspension preload with the collars BUT that's a whole another subject.

 

Just tell them to set camber to -1 deg set toe to 0 deg. You don't care about their opinions.

Camber settings aren't for looks (well unless you're hellaflush/stance/whatever). Settings it slightly negative is good for driving dynamics, especially in our car's suspension that gains quite a bit of camber naturally when the car turns. It is good to keep it as close to zero is possible when cornering, adding some natural negative camber is a good way to do this.

Your tires will not wear out any faster with 1 degree of camber vs 0.

I suggest if you'd like to not deal with these retards anymore you just start going to a shop in Sydney to get your work done. While you're there get your suspension corner balanced. Sit in the driver's seat while they do it. I am assuming there's quality "import oriented" shops in Sydney vs. being out in the middle of nowhere, that's why I suggest doing so.