Greetings, I'm seeing a lot less than vertical (using a carpenters level vertical across the tire and accounting for the slighly larger portion of the tire on the ground) for the rear wheels of my 2008 Fit (548 miles). I'm talking about over 3/8" or more and both sides are different amounts. I doubt this is "normal" and gives the same appearance as older BMW's (ugh!). This will obviously destroy the rear tires in short order!

Two questions....

1.) Anyone else with this problem (sorry, I did search the forum 'some' but found nothing specific)

2.) Is it safe to assume the dealer can "re-align" these? (I know, the answer is 'go find out'.. and report back, right?)

Thank you for your comments and suggestions!
-Si

 

Are you talking about the rear camber or toe?

Stock the fit rear has -1.3 negative camber and about 2mm toe-in from the factory.
Unfortunately they are not adjustable in the rear (torsion beam).
The only way to adjust the rear is to shim them.

http://www.club-miniban.com/fit_kyanba.htm

 

1. Your Fit is normal, nothing to worry about. Search for alignment, stock settings show that the Fit has more rear negative camber stock and does not need to be adjusted. If you did want more or less rear camber then you need shims as mentioned but that isn't really needed except if you wanted to track your car. Tire wear will be fine, it's usually excessive toe settings that will wear tires faster. Yes you will wear a bit on the inner tire edges but it's not bad. Just rotate the tires every 3000-4000 miles and you will be fine. Front tires will wear the outer edges since front camber is not as negative. Only toe settings are adjustable on a stock Fit.

2. The dealer can check your alignment but will find it to be within normal stock specs. They don't recommend any settings out of the stock spec range although for performance driving on the track or for autocross you can change the toe settings for better turn in response at the risk of greater tire wear or a slightly too sensitive steering response for daily street driving. Normally you have toe in set for the front and rears (more on the front) which is safer under normal driving. You can change the front to zero toe and rear to 1/16" toe in for more responsiveness.

 

Thank you for the insight into my alignment question. I had seen the Japanese flat washer alignment page. I'm thinkin' it looks a little weak in the safety department! Thanks for the repost though!

It looks like 3K+ mile service will consist of Oil Change, Filter Change and... Tire Rotation. We usually do that every other oil change but this probably needs to be more often for this car.

Needless to say, this is our first Honda.. well, actually it's our first non-American car. I've been a street rodder since 1952 and have built many cars over the years. However, with $4 gasoline on the horizon it was time to be thinki' of somethin' with less than 500HP!

This little car (the Fit) is actually really nice (obviously I don't need to tell anyone here that!), drives great, runs great (well, it's not a 10 second quarter mile car, but WTF, you can't have EVERYTHING!) and is good value for the money. We got ours in Denver for just under $16K. We chose the bright 'resale' red Sport 5 spd version, mostly because that's the only one they had! I donno why they even make an automatic, just my opinion, no flames now!

The only short comings IMHO are the carpet (seems more like the insulation than the carpet!) and the upholstery (musta run outa cows in Japan?). Fortunately both can be 'fixed' easily and I've seem some 'creative' solutions on this forum. They could have put disk brakes on the rear for less money then those drums and they should add a 6th gear for the highway.. nearly 3K RPM at 75 mph. The '03 Z06 Vette runs 2100 rpm at 80 mph in 6th gear.. and gets 27 mpg.

You boyz keep up the good work and thanks again for you help! You should extend your forum to usenet.

BTW... at less than 1K miles on the odometer the mileage is 38.8 (65-75 mph) on the Interstate and 27.8 around town. (I'm a lite-foot around town.

Think I'll get another Fit in 2010.. if they fix those few things! -Si