Front wheels bowed

I noticed that my front wheels look like they are bowed inward.
The tired are pretty worn down, and the outer edges appear more worn than the inner edges. But the steering is fine. Straight down the line at any speed. What gives??

... Can't post the pic from my iPhone.
Will post later.

Go get an alignment brother

4running wrote:

Go get an alignment brother

^^Definately what he said ^^

Sounds like your camber might be off.



http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=4

Is the camber held through any type of tension on the tires that might change as the tires age and wear down?

Or is the camber unchanging unless something is damaged or through trauma like wheeling?

Camber can get knocked off spec, hit a big pot hole, wheeling will also do it overtime.

Also if you add any weight to your front end and sag the suspension down your alingment will be off. Which is why I can't get mine perfect because I have to pull my Bud skids for them to align and when you put them back on it knocks it out a little bit just because of the weight

4running wrote:

Camber can get knocked off spec, hit a big pot hole, wheeling will also do it overtime.

Also if you add any weight to your front end and sag the suspension down your alingment will be off. Which is why I can't get mine perfect because I have to pull my Bud skids for them to align and when you put them back on it knocks it out a little bit just because of the weight

I wouldn't think it would be that much. The weight of the driver is likely to have more of an effect. You have me thinking about taking mine off to get an alignment. I did think about that yet.

Yea its not huge difference but my wheel was on center when the wheels were straight...after putting on my skids and winch it was off by quite a bit

Yeah I just put ome heavy lift on, and my lr ucas. I set the ucas to the suggested setting which is obviously not with the heavies in mind. I drove to lenoir from asheville, and used a 1/2 tank of gas. That is because my camber was noticebly out a 1/2 inch or -5 plus plus. It rode great, but when I checked my tire wear the 280 mile round trip to lenoir and back on the parkway smoked about a 1/8 inch off the inside 3 inches of my tire until I was riding on that thin inner tire strip alone. Gotta get that alignement done bad. Oh yeah if you have to remove skids for alignement just set a pad on your hood and rest all the skids up there to get a true alignement. ALso sitting in your ride will also help you get a closer true alignment. (casey)

4running wrote:

... I can't get mine perfect because I have to pull my Bud skids for them to align and when you put them back on it knocks it out a little bit just because of the weight

Hmmmm, that is a very interesting tidbit of information...anyone with an FJ have the same issue...what about with the lighter Ricochet skidz? Do the lower A-arm armor have to come off to align...this just made my head hurt!

The front plates for the FJ are only 40lbs each, I think. If even 2 have to be removed I can't see it affecting much. I put my skids on after my last alignment. I plan to get it aligned again this December.

smoky cruiser wrote:

Yeah I just put ome heavy lift on, and my lr ucas. I set the ucas to the suggested setting which is obviously not with the heavies in mind. I drove to lenoir from asheville, and used a 1/2 tank of gas. That is because my camber was noticebly out a 1/2 inch or -5 plus plus. It rode great, but when I checked my tire wear the 280 mile round trip to lenoir and back on the parkway smoked about a 1/8 inch off the inside 3 inches of my tire until I was riding on that thin inner tire strip alone. Gotta get that alignement done bad. Oh yeah if you have to remove skids for alignement just set a pad on your hood and rest all the skids up there to get a true alignement. ALso sitting in your ride will also help you get a closer true alignment. (casey)

If you're wearing that badly, your toe is probably off too. Usually the camber being off doesn't wear tires that quickly since you're still rolling on them, even if only on one edge. If your toe is off though, the tires are pointing in or out while going down the road and are scrubbing on the road instead of rolling. You can scrap some tires in a hurry with toe being too far out.