Undoing De-Cambering
#1
Undoing De-Cambering
After I had my car at 110, (see related thread) I found a piece of left rear tire missing. Not a big piece but enough to make me get some new dunlops. The guy at the local giant chain suggested I have my alignment set to more straight up so the new tires would not wear on the inside like the old falkens had. So I took him up on that today; cost was under $60. The alignment shop guy stated that the rear camber is fixed in place but can be changed with aftermarket adjustable bolts that can be substituted for the original non-adjustable devices that skew the wheels outward at the bottom for better cornering. I will not be putting those on anytime soon unless I notice sloppiness or deterioration in the tossing about moments. Another member on here had stated our local dealer confirmed the car is set for de-camber angle at the factory on the sport models only, so I realize this is a heretical sin I am committing. But I don't want $600 of tires to be chewed up prematurely. What do others think?
#2
I'm not sure if you were looking for alignment specification to shoot for when adjusting for better tire wear. But in general the tires are least stressed when rolling straight in all three axis. Reality is this is compromised for steering feel by pre-tensioning the suspension system using tires in a slight misalignment.
The amount of static camber in back helps with ultimate side force generated to a point. Beyond that side force will decline with more camber. Usually it peaks around -2 to -3 degrees. This compromises rolling resistance and tire wear however.
Unless you are tracking, I would position the rear tires near 0 deg camber for best wear and durability.
The amount of static camber in back helps with ultimate side force generated to a point. Beyond that side force will decline with more camber. Usually it peaks around -2 to -3 degrees. This compromises rolling resistance and tire wear however.
Unless you are tracking, I would position the rear tires near 0 deg camber for best wear and durability.
#3
ok, I have this exact same problem and have been working very hard to fix it. I too own a sport model (the 02 3.0 5spd to be exact) and have found a couple solutions to this. I was only able to get around 25k miles at the most before my tires became destroyed on the inside much how you describe. I took it to an alignment shop twice and the owner told me that my car was "lowered" and that was why my camber was so bad. Before I did anything, it was at -2.9 which caused a great deal of harm to my tires. With much research I discovered that on the non-sport version of the x type, the wear on the inside of the tires is caused by worn out bushings in the rear suspension. I took off my wheel and then moved around my hub to see if there was any movement in my rear suspension. To my surprise, the bushings on the front lower control arm were completely out (caused by 115k of driving on the "sport" or "lowered" suspension.) I did a complete write-up on replacing the front lower control arm which you can find here: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...rite-up-68023/
Replacing the lower control arms got me back from -2.9 to -2.2. This is better and will get me about 5k more miles (i'm hoping) out of my new tires and the parts were only $100. To further fix this problem, I am in the process of removing the full sized spare (heavy) in the back and replacing it with a donut spare from an s-type (145/80/16 i think is the dimension.) Hopefully, when I am done with all of this, I will be able to get at least 35k miles out of my tires. If you really want to go the extra mile on this, you can buy new stock height springs for the rear which will lift the rear about 1.5" (1.2 for non sport and .3 for the sag in the springs cause they're old.) I decided this was not the route for me to go, however, because this requires a lot of work, and I bought the sport model to have the sportier suspension.
Replacing the lower control arms got me back from -2.9 to -2.2. This is better and will get me about 5k more miles (i'm hoping) out of my new tires and the parts were only $100. To further fix this problem, I am in the process of removing the full sized spare (heavy) in the back and replacing it with a donut spare from an s-type (145/80/16 i think is the dimension.) Hopefully, when I am done with all of this, I will be able to get at least 35k miles out of my tires. If you really want to go the extra mile on this, you can buy new stock height springs for the rear which will lift the rear about 1.5" (1.2 for non sport and .3 for the sag in the springs cause they're old.) I decided this was not the route for me to go, however, because this requires a lot of work, and I bought the sport model to have the sportier suspension.
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