excessive wear on front driver tire?

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BJDEALER

BJDEALER

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I just started test driving my car after figuring out some of the bugs and now i have this problem. I have only driven the car about 5 miles and the front driver side tire is getting a lot of wear on the outside edge. What causes that? thanks
 
to much caster or to much toe....or both ..... another note most frt end machine s now a days dont go back far enough for any of us ..... i use a diplomat program when i did the one on my dart if that helps .... earliest i could find so works well no tire wear ....
 
dartman340ta said:
to much caster or to much toe....or both ..... another note most frt end machine s now a days dont go back far enough for any of us ..... i use a diplomat program when i did the one on my dart if that helps .... earliest i could find so works well no tire wear ....
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Caster is a non wearing tire angle. If the toe is out to cause that much wear in a short time, I would highly suspect both tires would be worn. If they are not, there is only one thing that could be causing too much outside wear on only one tire. Too much positive camber.
 
Well when i had the engine out of the car i notice that tire was leaning in at the top a lot i thought that was normal. the other tire was leaning a little too. Is that the camber?
 
BJDEALER said:
Well when i had the engine out of the car i notice that tire was leaning in at the top a lot i thought that was normal. the other tire was leaning a little too. Is that the camber?
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Camber is defined as the angle of the steering axis as viewed from the front of the car. With the wheels straight ahead, if the steering axis tilts out at the top camber is said to be positive. If it tilts in at the top, it is said to be negative. It is normal for camber to go negative when weight is removed from the front and the front end rises because the conrtol arm becomes "shorter" due to the arc in which it travels and pulls the tires in at the top. The opposite is true when the front end lowers. Trying to determine camber with the engine out is impossible since camber specs are given at a specific ride height that includes the weight of the engine and all accessories. When I did alignments, I had a cast iron weight set that I used to put in the floor board to approximate the weight of the driver. Most alignment shops don't so that, but I always did. Kinda gets touchy if you're doin an alignment for a big ol fat woman. that's why I never asked....I just approximated. When the weight is all on the front end like it should be, then you can try to judge where camber is. It takes a trained eye to even "guess" whether it's positive or negative sometimes, because of the body lines of some cars.....especially older ones are tough because the fenders were rounded and give less of a point of reference for viewing. Since your points of reference are actually the frame rail and the tire, older cars with their fender overhang make "guessing" more difficult. 1968FormulaS340 was short and sweet and dead nuts on when he said "get an alignment".
 
ok thanks. I went out and checked today and the passenger tire is wearing the same as the other just not as bad. Guess i will take your advice thanks!
 
BJDEALER said:
ok thanks. I went out and checked today and the passenger tire is wearing the same as the other just not as bad. Guess i will take your advice thanks!
Click to expand...

Then your solution is probably as simple as an alignment and to rotate the tires...and keep them rotated more often.
 
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