Camber angle impact on different parameters of vehicle handling as well as tire life. Following are the situations when you should check the correctness of your vehicle’s camber angle settings:
1. One sided tyre wire: If you observe uneven tire wear at any side of the wheel with most of the other portions of the tire in good condition as shown in below image, then you should suspect the camber angle setting.
2. Vehicle skidding easily while cornering: In correct camber angle setting can results lesser traction force while cornering, as a result vehicle skids easily. So, in case you are finding it difficult to control your car while cornering – check the camber correctness.
3. Tire getting heated up: In correct camber angle of car will result localized tire contact with road and thus increase in tire temperature. It’s good practice to feel the tire temperature by hand after driving, if the temperature is significantly higher and uneven – check the camber.
4. High steering effort: As camber angle controls the contact patch of the tire, and the contact patch controls the heaviness/lightness on steering wheel. So, if you are facing the issue of high steering effort – check your camber angle setting.
5. Over steer / under steer: Too much positive camber can cause over steer of your vehicle. If you are experiencing over steer / under steer – one of the cause may be the camber.
There are many reason why factory set camber get changed over a period of time, two most common of them are corrosion / play in the suspension joints and changing of wheels. Factory set angle is considered most optimum for the vehicle as been chosen after rigorous testing of the vehicle, unless you want to customize the handling and wheel parameters of the vehicle, stick to the factory set values.
Hi, I am Shibashis, a blogger by passion and an engineer by profession. I have written most of the articles for mechGuru.com. For more than a decades i am closely associated with the engineering design/manufacturing simulation technologies. I am a self taught code hobbyist, presently in love with Python (Open CV / ML / Data Science /AWS -3000+ lines, 400+ hrs. )