2012+ rear alignment and tire wear.

[torquelover]

Gassing up the car today I noticed the rear camber seems to be more excessively negative than before, and not matched side-to-side from driver's side to passenger side. Here are some pics:

The original Toyos were dead at 30k miles, due to extreme inside tire edge wear and cupping. I have read here that previous gens MZ5 had non-adjustable camber and toe. I am getting the car realigned soon, and am seriously considering getting a set of adjustable UCAs since the car is now out of warranty. Problem is finding a shop to dial some of this out. This car spends a lot of time nowadays fully loaded with 5-6 people and cargo which I am sure only makes matters worse here.

Anyone here running close to zero camber? If so, did it bring toe closer to ideal, and is it non-adjustable?

 

[phunky.buddha]

Toe is always adjustable unless you have a solid axle. When you get your alignment, take some sand bags with you ($3 each at Home Depot) and load up the car how you drive it most of the time- that will compress your suspension down to your normal driving condition and allow the shop to set your toe to better suit your typical load. The 5 has a LOT of toe change under compression, so setting the toe under load helps quite a bit.

Cupping is also caused by worn/dead shocks- so check those. The rears in OEM-spec tend to die rather quickly.

Right now I'm running about -1.5 degrees camber all around but with close to zero toe, and the wear is much better than before.

 

[oldpunk]

Have you checked to see if the bushings in the camber arms are warn?

 

[torquelover]

Cupping is also caused by worn/dead shocks- so check those. The rears in OEM-spec tend to die rather quickly

The rear struts feel fine, when I try to bounce the rear (I'm 250 lbs) there is no excessive cycling. I followed the car the other day while it was driven over various pavement irregularities and all looked well.

Have you checked to see if the bushings in the camber arms are warn?

I haven't had an opportunity to do this. My other two cars have had some issues lately (water pump, injector return lines, brake lines) that took precedence. Being the coldest winter in memory doesn't help. Garage is now heated, so I am making some progress here. I did grab onto the rear wheels and can tell you, with the car on the ground at least, the rear wheels deflect the same as the two new MZ5s at the dealer in camber, and a little more in toe, when I try to move them. The two MZ5s at the dealer looked to have a degree or less of negative camber. Our MZ5 looks to be a lot more than this, and definitely more than the pics of the same car when new.

I am researching a possible solution to my issues (another thread) if we do not replace this car soon. It was purchased with the intention of only using the 3rd row on rare occasions, but just the opposite is the norm now. We also planned to keep our previous minivan around for towing/heavy hauling but sold it soon after the MZ5 came home. I have an F250 long bed 4x4 now for heavy hauling/towing but the passenger/cargo issue remains. Wife wants a new Suburban or Odyssey with 7-8 passenger+cargo capability, but that's not in the finances this year.

The car goes back to the alignment shop soon, with a full tank for sure, not sure if I am going to load it down or not yet. If the airbags work out, I can get it aligned at regular ride height and be fine.

 

[torquelover]

As an update, everything looks good in the rear end, no excessive deflection in the suspension links. I do not see any camber adjustment built in here, so the adjustable upper arms are needed. I cannot find a local shop that will touch the car to align it with aftermarket arms on the car. Spoke with the wife and next year will see less traveling with 5-6 on board with luggage so I might be okay for now. Next year this is paid off, family hauler duties will go to another vehicle, and this will become my DD/beater so this is a closed issue for us.

 

[phunky.buddha]

You definitely do NOT have adjustable rear camber from the factory... most cars do not. As far as local shops, don't tell them you have the arms on the car. Just install them and ballpark the adjustments where you need them to be (I turned mine 4 turns out past stock length after matching them up), then get the alignment done.

Camber on its own doesn't destroy tires- toe PLUS camber destroys tires. Or lack of toe control, which is partly what we have. The rear wheels have a pretty wide toe curve that they travel through their stroke, so that's part of the cause. Changing the static camber won't really affect that too much. I fixed my problem in the rear (not the target, just a result) with springs that are about 3x stiffer than stock- so I have less movement. Less movement = less toe scrub = less wear.