My wife and I both own 97 Prizms which are really Toyota Corollas, with about 100k miles on them. They are excellent cars. They were actually assembled at the Numi auto assembly plant in Fremont California in a joint venture with Toyota near where I live. Too bad they are no longer made. The last ones were made in 2002 I think.
I had the wheels aligned recently on my wife?s Prizm by the Chevy dealer. I had this done because of the left rear tire had cupped wear and I couldn?t figure out why. The origin of that problem was later traced back by a tire dealer to a bad left rear shock absorber that was replaced 2 years ago but the tire wasn?t replaced. So I bought a new tire. Actually the tire was under warrantee and I got a new one for free.
The results of the alignment was that the left rear camber alignment COULD NOT be aligned without a CAMBER KIT. It was .4 degrees out of the range of -1.7 to -0.2 at -2.1.
The right rear camber was within specifications at -1.4. The rear toe alignment was within specifications on both rear wheels. The front alignment was OK.
The Chevy dealer wants to charge me $400 total or $200 each side to align the rear wheels because it needs an alignment kit that was not a standard Chevy part, nor does Chevy make the part. I asked if any of the standard parts were bent or damaged and they said no, but it was still out of alignment by .4 degrees. Can this extra .4 degrees of camber alignment cause the left rear tire to wear prematurely? Should I spend the $400 to get the rear alignment done?
Gil Chandler
San Jose CA
The amount of excessive camber, .4 of a degree, is large and can contribute to tire wear.
Bent suspension parts can cause this but it’s also somewhat common for cars to have alignment problems that are design induced. It’s also common for aftermarket companies to provide kits to correct these problems.
If the car makers provided this then it would be admitting to a fault so that won’t happen.
What I would do is price this job around at an independent shop or possibly even a chain store such as Firestone. The latter I don’t usually recommend, but it won’t hurt to ask.
Camber alterations are not usually that difficult to perform. Hope that helps.
I second what OK4450 said.
And would add, that it isn’t that the camber is out by 0.4 degrees, but that it is 1.05 degrees from the target value.
In my area Firestone will recommend everything under the sun when you bring it in to change your tires. I was fully up on maintenance on my Subaru WRX, while installing new tires Firestone car care recommended about $800 of work to my car. The service manager’s faced turned a slight shade of red when I showed a $300 receipt for a major maintenance(30k) at Subaru dealer performed just 600 miles before…
Why are you taking this car to a Chevy dealership? It isn’t really a Chevy, so no wonder they don’t have the part!
A reputable independent alignment shop should have no problems with this, or else the Toyota dealer would be more skilled and stocked with parts for this car.
In my area Firestone will recommend everything under the sun when you bring it in to change your tires.
Firestone mechanics (as do most national chains) work on commission.
Thanks everyone so much for your advice. Here are a few items I didn?t mention with the initial question.
We only drive it about 3,000 miles or less a year, because my wife works from home starting about 2 years ago.
My local mechanic tells me that it needs to have the motor mounts replaced. It vibrates more than the other 97 Prizm we own. Is that an urgent repair? His cost $270.
The car has a salvaged title before we bought it 5 years ago. It ran over some large parts that fell off a truck and had to have most of the suspension replaced, so that is the most likely cause of the problem.
We have owned the car for about 50,000 and 5 years miles and haven’t noticed the effect of camber wear, which would be excessive wear on the inside of the tire, is it possible that the bad shock absorber replaced 2 years ago was responsible, or is it just wear and age?
So how much earlier would the tire wear out from its standard life? 20% 30%?
The cheap tires on the car are rated at 35,000 miles, would it wear out at 25k? or what?
What effect would rotating have on the life of the tires (2 on the left side of the car), since it would only spend half the time of its life at that spot? So it would wear out 20% faster, it would then wear out 10% faster with rotating?
For $50 a tire I could get 4 tires for $200, maybe it would just be cheaper to replace the tires a little early? If the Chevy dealer charges $200 for the camber kit alignment, then a no name shop would probably charge $150?
If I just wait 5-10k miles and see how the tire is wearing, take pictures to compare it, what do you think? The left rear tire was just rotated from the front and has 10-15k miles on it.
good point thank you