Tyres Shocker

[Mr Savage]

The camber on my GTI is out but VW refused to fix it because they can't be bothered removing the subframe.

[corgi]

AFAIK, camber Is not adjustable on the Golf... That means it was out at the factory or some damage has occurred. When you say it's out, how is it out? Is it positive or negative? Is it even both sides?

If it were me I'd be insisting...

[Gnasher]

Not sure why then - it had the tracking done regularly but was slightly lowered from standard - never any stability issues. I was pumping 280 odd BHP through the front wheels though!

The fact is the most common cause of wear on the inside edge of the front tyres of a car is toe-out, not camber... unless you do some fairly extreme driving e.g. lots of time spent cornering hard - lots of track days on a tight and twisty track.

My first Integra Type-R used to root the front tyres in about 7k miles... I had a full four corner geo done and it was there was excessive toe-out. This was reset to a small amount of toe-in and suddenly the fronts lasted over 12k miles... and the car was transformed... Even with quite a bit of camber (within the spec) on my 911, the front tyres wear evenly because it is set with a little toe-in.

I don't know what the tracking parameters of the Golf are, but they could well be 0 + or - a small amount. The thing is if they are set parallel then under load they're like to run with a bit of toe-out owing to the flex in the suspension.

For me, I'd be asking them to set the tracking to allow for a little toe-in if the spec allows.

The amount of power shouldn't make a difference to the evenness of tyre wear... just the amount  unless of course, there's so much that when you use the power it distorts the suspension...

Mind you, it was a Vauxhall and all the ones I've owned seemed to wear the inside edges.