Severe Inner Tire Wear

[Bernie Benz]

Jeff,
 
I am effectively put down by your chest pounding insinuations and duly
impressed your apparent vast array of knowledgeable friends that you must
call upon for your expertise.

Likely we are talking apples and oranges.  You talking of the tracking of
race cars, where tire life is way down the list.  I am looking at maximizing
tire life under street and highway conditions.  Apparently, we might agree
that toe has a major affect on both inside and outside tire edge wear.  Toe
is an easy adjustment on the 44 chassis and I assume that it is made
correctly before looking for other wear factors.  That being the case, zero
or very small negative camber will maximize tire life under street and
highway conditions!

> From: Jeff.Bernstein at pneumaticscale.com
> 
> Bernie,
> 
> My first sentence can be substantiated by any knowledgeable alignment person
> who has aligned a lot more cars than I'm sure you have.  My years of
> experience with many different types of cars has also proven that it is the
> toe-in that has the most influence on inner tire wear.  I have run negative
> camber on every car that I have owned without wearing the inside of my
> tires. 
> 
> All these years I wondered why you thought your Bernie Benz strut brace
> would help with tire wear and now I understand.  You actually think that
> negative camber is used to correct strut alignment.  You can't possible say
> you know what suspension stability is when you obviously don't even
> understand what it is and what is important about it.
This paragraph makes you sound the ass, telling me of my thoughts, a put
down artist.    
> 
> On race cars where all the suspension points are reinforced, you still run
> negative camber.  This is because the most flexible component in the
> suspension is the tire.  It is the tire deflecting that is the reason for
> negative camber.  In fact some high performance tire manufactures will even
> recommend additional negative camber depending on their tire design.
> 
> I can assure you that if "T" puts on your Bernie Benz strut brace his tire
> wear problems will not go away.  I am positive that if he gets his toe-in
> problem corrected his tires will wear for many miles.  I am also sure that
> any knowledgeable alignment mechanic will agree with me.
All that I've ever claimed of a strut brace is that:
1.  It will provide maximum strut tower stiffness short of chassis redesign.
2.  It will allow additional positive going camber adjustment beyond the
limits of the 44 chassis stock adjustment.

Bernie
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bernie Benz [mailto:b.benz at charter.net]
> Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 4:37 PM
> To: Jeff.Bernstein at pneumaticscale.com
> Cc: 200q20V mailing list
> Subject: Re: Severe Inner Tire Wear
> 
> 
> Jeff, 
> 
> We disagree in principle on the reasons for negative camber.  Negative
> camber is used to correct for the strut tower deflection caused by lateral
> turning forces.  In the correct amount, the - camber just offsets the +
> camber effect of the strut tower deflection resulting in net zero camber,
> i.e. maximum tire contact patch on the outside tire.
> 
> Thus, the better idea would be to minimize the strut tower deflection such
> that less - camber is needed to correct for the maximum turn strut tower
> deflection.  This condition that will be more nearly correct for lesser
> turns and straight ahead driving.  My strut brace accomplishes this to a
> maximum, short of chassis redesign.
> 
> Further, I strongly disagree with your first sentence.  BTDT with DIY
> alignment where I know with certainty exactly what the alignment settings
> and what the suspension stability is.
> 
> Bernie
> 
>> From: Jeff.Bernstein at pneumaticscale.com
>> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 13:42:22 -0400
>> To: 200q20v at audifans.com
>> Subject: Severe Inner Tire Wear
>> 
>> Too much negative camber will add very little extra wear to the inside of
>> tires.  I run between 1 to 1.75 on all my Audi's and nearly 2 degrees of
>> negative camber on my Porsche without any problems with excessive inside
>> tire wear.  I set my cars up this way so that they handle better in the
>> corners.  Setting the car to 0 degrees camber will make your car corner
>> poorly.  Audi's have enough under-steer by design, you don't want to add
> any
>> more by setting the camber to 0 degrees.
>> 
>> If your toe-in is incorrect you will definitely have increased tire wear
>> which could be made worse by the extra negative camber.  Incorrect toe-in
> is
>> the major reason for increased wear on the inside of the front tires.  I
>> would be willing to bet that your toe-in is way out of specification.  If
>> you fix the toe-in you can ignore the excessive negative camber and just
>> enjoy the increased cornering ability that comes with the extra negative
>> camber.
>> 
>> Jeff 
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