wheel alignment

[A18A]

ookay this cars been through 2 wheel alignments in the last year, they told my dad that the specs had to go quite far from factory specs to be straight again (was this car in a crash?!?!?!) anyways, another 6 months, 2 wheel alignments & 4 (front) wheels later (now) the left front tyres inside & outterside is all bald!!!! (another wheel alignment needed?!?!?!?) the right side is all good though.. also, when the car is braking, theres a bit of a shudder noise in the front right (not the brakes) sounds more like a suspension problem, bushes maybe?? what could it be? whys this car being a bitch with its suspension? we have no way of tell if the cars been in a crash from its history, and cant pull it apart as its needed almost all the time. this car is also granny driven. what else could be causing this?

[wed3k]

so the steering has been checked for excessive play?

inside and outside wear usually indicates underinflation. you can also bring it to a body shop and see if the frame was tweaked.

[A18A]

yeah no play in the steering or anything

[A18A]

well it passed a wof so alls k i spose, should get rid of it now lol

[A18A]

how slack, now the cv joints clicking like mad and getting major rubbing sounds in the suspension somewhere :@ this car is annoying

[Otto]

ugh I know it. Mine's have 3 alignments, checked by two mechanics that turned up nothing, and it still won't hold alignment for more then a few months. Though it doesn't kill the tires, it does kill my enjoyment of the car. I also don't want to spend more time or money on it.
My 3g prelude had never seen a rack for the fives years and 60k miles I owned it. Always had a slight shimmy in the steering wheel, but it always drove perfect, and I hit some nasty things with it. Never touched anything except for the upper balljoints in the last few months I had it. Miss that car.

[civicboisi]

If the vehicle was hit, the alignment machine would definatly show it with the numbers. Typically, when you set up alignments, it'll show 2 things for the rear, camber and toe, and 3 things from the front, Caster Camber and Toe.

With this in mind, assuming the rear is in specc (Toe is adjustable with our vehicles) the front specc should be ideally the same. The rear HAS to be in specc in order to correct the front. Your alignment goes back to front, not front to back. Follow me soo far?

Now, also assuming the vehicle has all stock suspension and all of the SAME type of tires and brand, the only 2 things that'll cause the tire to wear unevenly from the inside is the Camber and Toe. Caster is not adjustable with our vehicles, so if it's a Caster issue, you'll have to bring it to a body shop with a Tram machine to tram it out and pull the wheel back into specc.

Keep in mind, this only pertains to the alignment of the vehicle. Bad front end parts will cause the tire to wear unevenly also. Like stated above, make sure your whole front end is nice and tight before you even attempt to align it. Otherwise, you're just throwing your money out the door :P

Another thing, if you bring it back to get it aligned, ask for a report. Most shops have a print out they can give you with the vehicles numbers BEFORE and AFTER the alignment. That'll tell you right there what they did or did NOT do

Caster = How far forward 1 tire is to another.
Camber = Obviously which way the wheel is sitting (in our out)
Toe = How far in the wheel is turned with the wheel centered.

Hope this helps some.

[johnl]

Caster is the rearward tilt of the steering axis, and is an angle defined by how far further forward the lower ball joint is relative to the upper ball joint (caster should be equal side to side, and you can have unequal wheelbase even with equal caster, which isn't to imply that this is desirable). With CB7 Accords there is some scope for caster adjustment, but it's not as simple as twisting something.

At the front end of the radius rod (that bar that effetively forms the forward leg of the lower wishbone) is a big rubber bush in the subframe (there are actually two rubber bushes, but you can't see this until you dismantle), on each side of the rubber bush is a large disc like retaining washer. Looking at the inner retaining washer you might see a smaller washer up against it, by removing this washer you can get a slight increase in caster, by adding more you can decrease caster, quite a lot if you need to in order to equalise caster angles side to side.

Unless you can find a spec from Honda that tells you how much X washer thickness affects caster by how much of a degree, then it's a bit of a suck it and see exercise, i.e. change the washer and remeasure the caster. What I did was to measure up my suspension very carefully and make geomtric drawings in CoreDraw (a CAD program would probably be better, but CD worked for me) and make measured changes on the drawings to find out what the affetcs of X washer thickness changes would be on caster angle. This is relatively involved and I'm afraid I can't give you any figures as I've lost the file.

A tyre that is worn on the inner and outer edges but less in the middle is nearly always the result of being run substantially under-inflated for an extended period.

[F22-GURU]

Just to add, ineffective or worn Shock Absorbers can also cause tyre wear.
As far as the vibration under braking is concerned an incorrectly centred and/or torqued wheel can cause this problem.

[mikesCB-7]

ookay this cars been through 2 wheel alignments in the last year, they told my dad that the specs had to go quite far from factory specs to be straight again (was this car in a crash?!?!?!) anyways, another 6 months, 2 wheel alignments & 4 (front) wheels later (now) the left front tyres inside & outterside is all bald!!!! (another wheel alignment needed?!?!?!?) the right side is all good though.. also, when the car is braking, theres a bit of a shudder noise in the front right (not the brakes) sounds more like a suspension problem, bushes maybe?? what could it be? whys this car being a bitch with its suspension? we have no way of tell if the cars been in a crash from its history, and cant pull it apart as its needed almost all the time. this car is also granny driven. what else could be causing this?

if the front alighnments still in order, and its pulling in a direction (left or right) a couple things cause it. make sure your cars not doing whats called "Dog tracking" get your rear wheels rechecked if the camber and caster are excessivly pulled out of spec, your car was 9 times out of 10 in a crash or hit a major ditch, since you cant adjust thoughs..... well bye bye honda. also if its not that, upper and lower balljoints could be worn, thats easy to detect wear on, upper ball joints on our car are connected to the upper control arm, lower is connected to the outer tie rod end. could be VERY! rarely your entire rack and pinion are out of spec only if your cars pull in a direction (your steering system) also check for worn bushings, like said earlier bad springs and shocks... also easy to tell( push down on your car, if it continues to bounce several times, it could be time for some new shocks) however if a mechanic didnt spot that then i have serious problems with them already haha. shocks cause camber to be out of spec. good luck though AND ALWAYS ASK FOR A PRINT OUT! if possible BEFORE & AFTER.

[johnl]

if the front alighnments still in order, and its pulling in a direction (left or right) a couple things cause it.

Not that original post said there was a pull; something else that can cause this is tyre 'conicity'. This is caused by a slight misalignment in the belts duering manufacture, and it's very common even on expensive tyres.

Ever noticed the coloured circumferential lines marked around the outside of many new tyres? These line marks denote the 'conicity' of the tyre. The newly manufactured tyre is placed in a machine that spins it under some load and then measures any tendency for the tyre to produce a greater force left vs right (i.e. whether it pulls or not, and in which direction and how hard), the tyre is then marked acording to the direction and strength of this force bias.

Having conicity doesn't mean the tyre is 'bad', but it does mean you need to fit tyres with matching conicity on the same axle line. To do this you'd select two tyres with identical conicity markings, and fit them to the rims with the markings on both tyres in the same relationship to the rims on which they're fitted. E.g. you want the markings to both be nearer the outside of both rims as fitted to the car, or vice versa, i.e. the markings on both tyres should be the same distance from the centreline of the chassis, not one closer and one nearer.

This is at least one good reason to avoid rotating tyres side to side AND front to rear, i.e. unless all four tyres have identical conicity and are mounted the same way on the rims (which I'd suggest is reasonably unlikely unless they are all the original fitted tyres from the factory) you might end up with unmatched conicity on the same axle line(s) and thus get a slight pull in the steering. Since the lines are only painted on and wear off very quickly, you'll be unlikely to know or recall what the conicity of any particular tyre actually might be when you start moving them from one corner to another.

Don't be put off if the expensive new tyres you're wanting to buy for your pride and joy have these conicity markings, it's usually the rubbish tyres that don't bother to test the conicity and don't mark the tyres, so you have no idea how they should be fitted. If the tyres do have these markings then it's a good thing because they can be properly fitted, so long as you and the tyre fitter know what the lines mean.