Both my MOT station and local body shop have mentioned this to me now. My front tyres are wearing quite unevenly with the insides being lower.

The car had been set up about 1.5years ago for fast road use. Could the camber applied here be causing this?

They said for £35 they will do a laser alignment to sort it out. Should I let them or will it kill any of the fast road settings and make it handle bad?

Or for £100 they can use a different alignment machine that gives the printout etc.

Not sure what to do.

 

Get an alignment, your front toe may be out. Camber wears tires, but toe really kills them. If the car is almost stock, the front camber can't get so aggressive that it would eat tires, so my money is on the toe. Go for the alignment and tell them the specs you want, if you need a baseline search for the "UK Alignment Spec"

 

I had the same issue - wore my last set of tires out in 8,000 miles. Get an alignment by a reputable shop or dealer.

 

Ok thanks I'll ask them to do it then, once I've found the UK spec!

 

100 pounds sounds like a stupid high price. I dunno what its like in the UK but here I think its 80 dollars from evasive to do.

 

Forget the UK spec, it calls for way way WAYYY too much rear toe (0.67 degrees total). Aside from that it's OK: -1deg front camber, -2deg rear camber, zero front toe. I recommend rear toe of -.2 degrees total. Caster: 5.5-6.5 degrees.

 

Now i'm confused! I think i'll just get them to do the 4 wheel laser allignment and they can leave the camber, toe in and caster the same!

Or I can just get coilovers for £500, fit them myself and pay our local s2k specialist £180 to set them up and do a fast road set up on them! But then there's the complication of swapping cv shafts etc and it's all just so much £££ & hassle!

 

Those are the only things that they adjust for. Just have them set alignment at factory spec and be done with it. The UK spec is fine as well, but more aggressive and will wear more on your tires.

 

"Factory spec" is a very wide range, and the UK "factory spec" in particular is *highly* suspect if it's the one I've seen where they have a *minimum* rear toe spec of 40 arcminutes or 0.67 degrees total, and a maximum of 80 arcminutes or 1.33 degrees total! That's just nuts, even on the low end.

Don't bother with an alignment until you understand the ramifications of all settings and know what to ask for specifically.

 

my last 2 alignments have worn on the inside edge of the front tire...which didnt really bother me cause the tire needed replacing anyway. But make sure your rear toe isnt excessive. 10mm total rear toe is the max. and some dealers will dial this in!