Ah, makes sense then, top leaning inward is consistent with a little more inner tire wear. Both my truck and my Corolla the top of the front tire leans out a little. Wonder why it is different on this car?
If you can’t measure them at home, I’d spring for a front end exam and an alignment check, not that much money, and it’ll answer all your questions.
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Most strut suspensions with radial tires need negative camber to get even wear, how much depends on a lot of things… handling, bushing rates, suspension design ect…
Your Corolla should have 0.5 degrees negative camber in the front but it can be slightly positive and still be in spec.
Your truck has a double A arm suspension so a little positive works because the tire goes negative as the suspension deflects.
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P.S……… thinking about my front end suspension. It doesn’t even have a way to adjust camber like all my older vehicles. I’d have to add camber ( a bolt with concentric cam lobe ?? ) bolts to the lower strut mounts.
The only adjustment that can be made is toe.
Slight negative on front wheel drive and slight positive on a double axle like the old Fords I owned. Makes sense.
On my primitive gauges I used to set all my independent front end cars as close to possible 0* camber. My tires always wore perfectly.
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That works… Or you can file the upper strut mounting hole a little bit. Just make the hole oval the same amount right and left so the alignment is the same.
Using a plumb bob and a scale will allow you measure the camber angle very accurately. Or use a length of angle iron with one of those $25 digital angle finders magnetically snapped to it.
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The spec might be negative 1 on the front camber but IMO that is way too much. With specs like that I’ve always aimed for a 1/4 degree at most.
The reason for wide specs is that the car manufacturers do not align the cars after the manufacturing process. The wide berth assures that most will come off of the line in that range.
Some high end car makers do align them and actually have alignment as part of the major maintenance intervals.
As for wheel balancers I still have a Micro bubble balancer which was going to be thrown out at a dealer where I worked. They sold it to me for 5 bucks with the adapters and while I loathe wheel balancing that thing has balanced tires dead on after repeated computer balancing did not. When tires have been balanced 4 times by 3 different shops (first two was the tire vendor) and the imbalance still exists then it’s time to revert to the bubble never lies method.
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I have a very old Bomb Sight brand bubble balancer. Does a great job. Probably better than a new H.F. model.
For steel wheels 15 " & less, do you think the dynamic balance method offers any practical advantage over a carefully done bubble-balance job?
The reason I ask, both my vehicles have those sorts of wheels, and never had any problem with all four wheels initially bubble-balanced when mounted, then given a bubble-balance checkup once every two years. Didn’t have any problems when they were dynamic balanced either, but the dynamic balance seems to produce more wheel weights, and the more wheel weights you have, the more likely one will fall off.
Allow me to explain about balancing and tire uniformity:
Bubble Balancing (aka Static Balance) assumes that the weight deviation is more or less aligned with the tread centerline. This is a mostly good assumption. The weights should be evenly (more or less) divided between the front and the back of the wheel. Vehicles are somewhat sensitive to Static Balance.
Dynamic Balance (aka as 2 Plane Balance) doesn’t make that assumption and places 2 weights in different locations. to deal with the off-center nature of the imbalance, if there is one. Dynamic Balance includes Static Balance as part of the process. Vehicles are less sensitive to Dynamic Balance. You can tell if a vehicle has been dynamically balanced if the wheel weights are in different locations circumferentially. (However, it is possible the assembly doesn’t need to have the weights in significantly different locations)
Tire Uniformity is a combination of stiffness variation and Out-of-Round and is completely independent of balance, even though it is analogous to balance. The high spot of the tire can be matched up to the low spot of the wheel to improve to Assembly Uniformity - and to my knowledge EVERY vehicle manufacturer does this. Vehicles are even less sensitive to tire (and assembly) uniformity than to static balance. You can not fix uniformity issues except by match mounting - and even then, there is a limit to how much improvement can be made.
Most vehicles are insensitive to anything less than a 1/4 ounce (5 grams) imbalance. That’s because there is road noise and things vibrating that drowned out the imbalance and uniformity.
- BUT -
There are some vehicles that are incredibly sensitive to imbalance and uniformity. Plus there are people who are also sensitive. And that’s why all 3 of those things exist.
Plus as time goes on, manufacturing variation improves and each becomes less in need of adjustment.
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Interesting!
I have noticed that 95% of the time when I bubble balance, my weights are in one place ( if it’s possible I split the weight between inside and outside rim) but sometimes no matter how I try I can’t get it balanced without placing weights in two different locations ( example…like 3 & 7 o’clock)
Recently I had an experience with a set of 4 tires. 1 constantly went out of balance but looked fine ( started at 8,000 miles then progressively less miles each time, to the point where I just discarded it with plenty of tread left) and another got tread separation at about 20,000 ( unrelated to balancing but i mention it as a possible related quality issue)
Any thoughts would be interesting.
When I was using a bubble balance, I would take the smallest set of 4 weights that slightly over-balanced the heavy spot, then spread them two to a side until the tire was balanced (say, start with the heavy spot at 12, the 4 weights at 6, then spread them to 7 and 5, for example). Then two on the front, two on the back.
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In bubble balancing, moving the weights apart to get it to balance just means there is too much balance weight. By moving one (or more) of the weights, you are reducing the effectiveness of the weight - which you could also do by trimming a bit off the balance weight.
Tell you what: Next time you bubble balance a tire and wheel assembly, if you find the situation where the balance weights you have chosen over balance things, rather than moving the weights, try trimming off some of the weight and see if you can’t get the answer you are looking for.
BTW, balance weights come in increments and my experience is that if you are within a 1/4 oz. (5 grams), you’re good to go. No need to split the weights or trim them. That’s what balance machines do (unless you turn the “round off function” off.) You can’t feel the difference because of the amount of road surface input.
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As a follow….admittedly not up to a professional standards but, on a perfectly level concrete driveway, using a 2’ level and steel tape measure.
I compared my old Toyota which wears out front tires perfectly even to my Kia which wears out the insides.
Definitely a lot more negative camber ( a full bubble) on the Kia while almost perfectly level on the Toyota.
Kia had about 1/16” toe in which would seem to be roughly within the okay range.
Just ordered camber adjustment bolts and after installation the new tires go on and off to the alignment rack it goes.
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Sometimes I run into this bubble-balancer problem. Say the tire needs 4 grams at one spot, 2 outer, 2 inner . I only have 1 gram weights. What’s the best way to spread the four 1 gram weights around?
Just put two of them next to each other. And you mean ounce, not gram, right? 4 grams is very little, about 1/8 of an ounce.
Yes, ounce, not gram. I have one of those balance scales I check my weights with (old one, like used in 1960s High School Chemistry labs) and it measures in grams, just a little geezer confusion … lol …
So two together on the outside, two together on the inside.
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