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> Forewarning to Everyone!, About lowering and rims, please read.
post Feb 2, 2004 - 12:43 PM
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Guest_Jason_*











Currently i'm riding on Dropzone Coilover's (probably 3-3.5" drop) with 18" rims and 35 series tires.

When you lower your car, your wheels start to lean inwards due to the Camber from lowering your car. Well, after riding on a 3" drop for about 2-3 months now, I thought nothing of my Camber. About 2 days before switching from Lowering Springs to Coilover's, I had all 4 tires on my rims replaced with brand new Nankangs (a decent name brand). Friday night, driving home my back right tire popped, lost its seal with the rim and went completely flat. Consequently, the screwed up Camber caused irregular tire wear on all of my tires (but severly effected the back tires). My tires actually wore inside 4x faster than the outside, causing a very nicely noticeable slant in my tires. Now, these were only 2 month old Tires keep in mind.

After getting my car towed to my uncle's work, NTB wanted to deal with him, so they used my Car as a dummy car to see what kind of work NTB would do. They've been wanting to deal with my Uncle for awhile now, so he put them to the test with my car. Well today all the information cameback. After lowering my car, the negative Camber threw off the alignment very bad, caused irregular tire wear making the tire slant and shrink (weird eh?). Also, the back tire did something inside the fender that needed to be fixed. All and all, for 4 new tires, corrected alignment, mount and balancing and fixed camber, i'm 670$ in the hole... I could have avoided all of this if I would have been smart and did everything from the beginning like I should have.

Now, just a little note to all of you into lowering your car and playing with suspension... don't learn the hardway like I did, take my mistake to your advantage. When lowering your car, get the car taken to a shop immediatly to get your alignment redone and your camber fixed! Spend that 100$ or so (i'm not sure), before your almost 700$ in the hole later.
 
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post Feb 2, 2004 - 4:04 PM
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ConeTrouble

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Jason,

First off, sorry to hear about your troubles. You are correct on many points, and many people should take heed and listen to some of what you have to say. Perhaps they can avoid the mess you are in. I hope everthing works out for you.

QUOTE (Jason @ Feb 2, 2004 - 5:43 PM)

When you lower your car, your wheels start to lean inwards due to the Camber from lowering your car. 


This is very true. I am curious as to the amount of negative camber you ended up with after a 3.5 inch drop. It is important that people modding their car in this manner be prepared to compensate for the increase in negative camber.


QUOTE (Jason @ Feb 2, 2004 - 5:43 PM)

I had all 4 tires on my rims replaced with brand new Nankangs (a decent name brand).

My tires actually wore inside 4x faster than the outside, causing a very nicely noticeable slant in my tires.  Now, these were only 2 month old Tires keep in mind.


Honestly, I have never heard of these tires. While I admit I am not up to speed on all the brands out there, I am not convinced this is all that great of a tire/brand. Granted you are running some whacked aligment settings, but I think some of the blame might lie on the tires, too.


QUOTE (Jason @ Feb 2, 2004 - 5:43 PM)

Well today all the information cameback.  After lowering my car, the negative Camber threw off the alignment very bad, caused irregular tire wear making the tire slant and shrink (weird eh?). 


I can understand some negative camber, but that is about all you should have had, unless your toe was messed up as well. The slant and shrink thing sounds like bullsh!t to me. I have heard dealers tell people some off the wall stuff, and this smells about the same to me. It also doesn't make me any more inclined to think the Nankangs are all that decent a tire.

Now, from my personal experince, I have run 2 degrees of negative camber on all four corners of my car with NO tire wear problems at all; however, I do autocross my car, and I do corner a lot harder than most people. I wore out a set of OEM Potenzas in 15K miles, but the wear was dead even all across. If your driving style suits it, I can't say negative camber alone is a bad thing. If you had some really gnarly toe settings, though, then wear could really get out of hand, but I would have thought you'd have seen that when you replaced the old tires with the Nankangs... not to mention the fact that weird toe settings will make your car handle like @ss most of the time.

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