Rear Wheel Camber

[dphil66]

I just had an alignment done on my '99 C4 at the dealership, and they give me a nice little spec sheet showing what all the alignment measurements were before and after the alignment procedure.

One thing I noticed is the spec on the rear wheel camber is -55 minutes to -1 deg 25 min. So the nominal is -1 deg 10 min. Before the alignment mine was -1 deg 38 min. This was definitely causing my rear tires to wear out on the inside. But the spec is still negative camber. Anybody know why Porsche specifies this? Is this unique to the 996 Carrera 4?

They told me they would make it whatever I wanted (like, zero degrees!), but would have to charge me for the entire alignment again because they have to set the whole car up on the equipment again to change the rear camber.

No wonder they told me that 911 owners go through tires every 10-12k miles. I smell burning rubber every time I get out of the car no matter how delicately I drive it, because this alignment is causing my rear tires to literally get chewed up every time they rotate. The rear inside edges of the tires are warm (and not just from the engine heat) even if I just I drive a mile down the road to the video store. Is this the same on a C2? Does anybody have any experience with setting it to zero degrees?

[Loren]

Negative camber is used to increase handling and safety. By increasing camber you are inducing a small amount of understeer which makes the car more stable and easier to control in high speed turns and to some degree low speed turns. Most serious autocrossers or racers are running -2 to almost -3 degrees in the front and -2 to -2.5 in the rear. Yes, the tires wear faster but the car drives like it is on rails.

A 2:1 rear to front replacement is not unusual for a rear engine/rear wheel driven car performance car.

For safety sake I would highly recommend staying within the factory specs for alignment.

[Kim]

No wonder they told me that 911 owners go through tires every 10-12k miles. I smell burning rubber every time I get out of the car no matter how delicately I drive it, because this alignment is causing my rear tires to literally get chewed up every time they rotate. The rear inside edges of the tires are warm (and not just from the engine heat) even if I just I drive a mile down the road to the video store. Is this the same on a C2? Does anybody have any experience with setting it to zero degrees?

My car is set up to factory specs. So far, in over 15,000 miles, I have not noticed uneven wear on my my rear tires .... on either edge.

My car is not tracked, but I do enjoy driving it agressively when able / safe to do so.

Kim

2000 Cab