This is what happens to your tires...ANY lowering springs will cause negative camber....These tires still had 6/9 (9/9 is new tire) tread left except on the inside, where they were nearly gone. Had no confidence going 80 on the freeway, much less taking it past the buck20 mark.

I can afford the lowering springs...just not replacing tires every four months

 

Agreed.
I put Eibach lowered springs on my old XFS and the inner edges of the rear tyres wore out really quickly.
Nothing wrong with the springs, the problem is the rear camber on the XF cannot be adjusted to counteract the increased negative camber, there simply is no adjustment possible..
Of course this applies to the XF and pretty much all modern Jags, on most other cars the rear camber can be adjusted to cater for lowered springs.

 

I was dismayed at the lack of adjustability, going all the way back to the year 2000, when I bought a Lincoln LS, which was a "cousin" to my '09 XF. How they couldn't include a means for adjustment, to me, is unconscionable. Neither my former LS, nor my current XF, have an "in spec" camber on the left rear, and there's NOTHING that can be done. And YEAH, I'd love to throw a set of the Eibach springs on our XF........

 

Can you at least get the toe in to spec? That should minimize the uneven tire wear with the extra negative camber.

 

There a guy here that goes by Cambo that outsourced some adjustable linkage parts for the X Type. He might be able to help anyone interested in lowering the XF without ruining your tires...not on top of my list of things to do to the car so i will chalk it up to lesson learned and move on.

 

In my case, yes, the toe is well within spec, and although the camber is out of spec (excessive) on the LR, I'm not showing any undue tire wear, at least not yet. However, I have only 32,000 miles on the car, and it's spread across 3 sets of tires....the OE Continentals that I wasn't impressed with, and removed after about 8000 miles, the Bridgestone RE 970s that I replaced the Contis with, and the snow tires that are on the car 4 months a year.


I saw the information that "cambo" posted, but I wasn't sure that the parts he used would work on the XF. Way back when, when I still had the Lincoln, and was quite active in the Lincoln LS Owners Club, we were searching for ways to adjust the rear camber, as a number of the guys there, were actively auto crossing their LSs.


I had read somewhere that the rear suspension for the LS, as well as the Jag S-Type, was derived from the late 90s Mustang SVT. The SVT supposedly had a camber adjustment provision, via the upper ball joints, but since those cars were so limited in production, neither cars nor replacement parts were able to be personally observed, so the idea simply fell by the wayside.....

 

I came to the same conclusion a few weeks a ago. I knew in advance from past vehicles that camber could be an issue, but once I had installed my new set of H&R springs, I was surprised at how far off it really ended up. Without any way to correct, I removed the springs and in the garage they sit. I'm hopeful someone will share a solution at some point.

 

How far off was it? I would be ok with anything up to around -2 degrees.

 

I understand the stock rear camber is -1, and with the Eibach springs (a drop of 25 mm or approx 1") on the rear I'm guessing it went to somewhere around -3 to -4. I never had it measured, I'm simply making a WAG, but it was a big change, way more than -1 to -2.

 

That's quite a bit. Even on my previous cars that I tracked (dual purpose) I never went that high.

 

i also didn't bother to measure, but I would agree probably at least around -4 for me. It was off enough that I didn't have to look hard to see it looked silly, imo.
Im still not sure if mine being awd had anything to do with it. H&R says the drop should have been much less than it actually was, but they say that the spring were made to order for the awd.

 

 

A buddy of mine races and I spoke to him about this problem. I'm lowered with H&R springs and my inner walls on my tires wear very fast. He recommended camber plates.

I have looked around but nothing for our car. With all the support we have on the forum, we should source out someone who would be willing to build. Or maybe we can cross reference.

 

I did a quick search for my last wheel alignment print-out, but didn't find it. I'll look again, but what I do remember, was my RR camber was -1.4*, and "in the green", so to speak, and the LR was -1.8*, and "in the red". I think that -1* was the "nominal".......


Believe me, I'm VERY disappointed that there isn't any adjustment in the rear camber. Even if I didn't install lowering springs, which I'd be tempted to do, at minimum, I'd like to be able to adjust the camber to the nominal value.


Furthermore, if it can't be adjusted, why even put a spec out there?

 

Camber plates don't work on cars with double wishbone suspension or multi-link rear suspension. What we need are adjustable upper A-arms (front) and adjustable camber links (in the rear, usually one or two of the links per side).

I had the above on my 350z to correct the camber after putting coilovers on the car, which uses a double wishbone front and a multi link rear just like our cars.