Rear tire wear with current setup

wheee!

You are getting robbed. An alignment with a camber and toe kit is super easy. $100 max. Just make sure your car can make it onto the ramp! I drove mine on myself.

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Fishey

To do an alignment right takes time usually over an hour on most machines if you are doing a full alignment even if the adjustments are easy as hell to reach and use. If you have a super badass machine (Reflector/zero runout) it might only take you slightly under an hour to do but also keep in mind that these machines cost upwards over $20,000+ and they don't pay for themselves.

Sure, you can get a $100 alignment at alot of places but your alignment is going to be garbage and your car will handle like garbage. Most techs at firestone/pepboys/tirediscounters know nothing about car setup. They pick your car from a list on the alignment machine and try to hit specs and usually do so without doing any of the work that needs to be done prior to even having an alignment done. (Ballast, Tire Pressure, Check balljoint/bushings/bearings/rack)

Also, your rear tire wear might not have anything to do with rear camber it could also be rear toe. Are you getting any chopping in the tires? If so your problem is certainly toe if not it could still be toe just to a lesser degree. There are plenty of people who run far to much rear toe-in and as a result the inside edge of the tires try to roll over as the left and right try to push the car in both directions at the same time. Anything over .30 total and your going to start noticing it with some negitive camber in the car.

wheee!

I agree with most of what you are saying, however, doing an alignment with the right tools and the right people is easy and quick. One of our members in the Zedmonton Lounge owns a tire shop with an alignment rack. We did about 5 cars in two hours with custom setups and alignment. No problem! Plus we all had adjustable suspension components which helped a lot!! All for the price of a few beers... lol

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Fishey

So one person by themselves checked tire pressure, then thoroughly checked all suspension bushing, balljoints and wheel bearings? Also looked at the condition of tie-rods and steering rack? Then properly ballast the cars to suit the drivers needs? A custom setup with coil overs/tie rod ends certainly adds more to the setup but clearly dont know how many of those cars might have coilovers but it can add significant time.

That being said I have my own alignment rack and machine for my shop. Certainly there are faster setups but I own what I do for accuracy without spending serious money on a reflector setup.

I am curious as to what type of alignment machine/rack was used for these alignments.

wheee!

it was indeed a reflector setup. And all the cars were spring drops, not coils so you are right, it was faster. The bushing were all visually inspected and all the tie rods/camber arms etc were checked, aligned and torqued. Here is the pic with me in the drivers seat for better balance as well... hope that satisfies the curiosity!





one of the others...






enough proof? oh! and the alignment sheet too..

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Red__Zed

Say what? Alignments are trivial and take less than 30 minutes on the Z if you have any idea what you are doing.