Petie

ok, im getting sick of this. currently ive had three alignments, all of which done by a shop that does alignments on custom cars, etc. so it wasnt done by mercedes to stock specs. all ive got currently is 18inch rims, 225/255 tire setup, running about 33 psi front and rear. i really dont drive the car hard ever, yet no matter what i do, i wear hard on the insides of the tires. my rear tires currently have less than 10K miles on them and the insides are cooked. they are 300 treadwear Kumho. im not really happy with the tires performace and noise, but that should have nothing at all to do with the wear. what the hell do i do? i cant afford to replace REAR tires every 10K miles when the outsides are still perfect. what gives? what do i do? any help any possibilites please, im 20 and i cant afford to keep replacing tires this often.

x15jq

I wish my insides would wear, my friggoin outsides always get cooked on the front of my clk 320 cabrio..

Always been like this since new, my moms 91 mercedes has the balding the edge of the tire issue as well. I keep the front sat 35 rear 33, and i had each aligned.

I dont know, im thinking lowering will help me in this situation to give it more negative camber since u cant adjust the stock camber on the mb anyways without the crash bolts aka camber bolts.

Perhaps u should get a different spring pad, or is ur car lowerd i checked ur sig didnt see nething.

E55AMG99

How much negative camber do you have? Sounds like you need to find an adjustable kit for the rear? Someone here was selling a set.

Petie

i dont know, all the current suspension components are stock, only rims and tires.........

mmgrad

with a stock suspension, you really shouldn't be having any of those camber issues...

MB has some camber bolts that can adjust the camber a little, and although many say they don't exist, my dealer installed some on my car to correct the problem I was having...

if you have real bad camber, which it does by the sounds of it, contact MARK CUMMINS (thats his MBworld id).... he can hook you up with a compatible camber kit that will correct more camber than the OEM MB camber bolts....

btw, since you say the suspension is stock, did you change to thinner pads or anything?

Petie

nope, no spring pads, nothing....maybe a camber issue, i dont know, seems like my alignment guy would have noticed something like that though right???

mmgrad

well, based on the description, it is definitely a camber issue...

if inside is worn out, you have poor negative camber...
if outside is worn out, you have poor positive camber...
if inside & outside is worn out, you have under-inflated tires...
if your center is worn out, you have over-inflated tires...

call you MB advisor an ask them what is the acceptible degree of camber for your benz, then have your alignment shop give you a print out of alignment.... I think 1 degree of negative camber is acceptable...

Petie

ill ask about that, thanks....

could it be anything else? reason i ask is because this hasnt been a problem from the beginning, could my camber have gone more negative? if so, how? and would an alignment shop not see that? TIA

mmgrad

given that your suspension is performing normally, camber should change in that manner...

perhaps your rear shocks died?

do you notice any difference in ride quality? any wobble in the wheels? an elephant in the trunk?

normal wear & tear shouldn't cause this type of excessive camber wear

x15jq

have u ever hit any curbs or slid into anything hard?

On my c230 coupe i used to have i smashed a curb once from ice, only visual damage was a scrapped wheel..

But the dealer said the rear subframe was bent and thats not adjustable, and it was a 5000 dollar fix, i didnt get it done, i just drove the car till it got LEMONED 3 months later lol.

But u might want to check out the spec at the alignment shop, if they are aligning it they would see if it was out of wack on a hunter machine.

Is the rear worse than the front? Do u keep alot of **** in ur trunk, cuz when the suspension compresses, the negative camber seems to increase IMO.

Fronts I would never suspect the insides wearing first thats just friggin wierd, if anything the outside. I could never get even wear on my fronts, the outer edge is always getting ripped apart no matter pressure or how careful i drive.

Ive given up on the clk alignment, how can they make a 50k car with no adjustable camber or caster stock. The only thing u can adjust is the toe I belive in the front.

Petie

i havent hit anything. i hit a pothole apparently (i dont remember any potholes that seemed to be a problem at the time) that was bad enough to knock my front driver side rim slightly out of round. it took a lot of work to get the front aligned properly (wearing on outside edge) but ive fixed that problem, and now this problem in the rear has developed. i have driven with people in the back of my car for short periods of time, never more than a couple miles, and not that often. as far as loading my trunk, i dont think there has ever been a time where ive had more than maybe 100lbs in my trunk, and that was highway miles to and from school. if the weight is properly distributed on the rear tires, wouldnt weight just put more stress on the tires, not cause more negative camber? id definitely looks like i have too much negative camber on the rear, but i just dont know how it would have happened. do cars that are lowered a lot and have negative camber to get the tires into the fenders have this problem of tire wear? this is not something i know a lot about, but ive learned that if something like this is wrong with your car, no one is going to fix it correctly unless you tell them exactly what is wrong. especially the dealership, they suck at diagnosing problems, they only fix it if i tell them exactly what is wrong.

mmgrad

damn... sounds like there might be something beyond that of your suspension then...

let just put it this way, once you put in that kleemann suspension, it will only get worse... lowering a car will increase the amount of negative camber, and from what you say, you are already having lots of negative camber...

Cory @ Kleemann

Perhaps your rear bushings are worn. Does the rear end feel unstable when you get on the power? A bit wiggly (for lack of a better term) when you get on it hard? How many miles do you have on that bad-boy?

Petie

maybe thats it, i havent driven the car hard in some time, but the rear end isnt extremely stable, perhaps less so than it used to be.

car has 45K miles on it, could this be the problem? i hope so.

Petie

either way, well put the car up and check the bushings in the next day or so, see how they look.

Cory @ Kleemann

With only 45K miles, I would say it isn't likley. Possible, yes, but not likley. It wouldn't hurt to take the car to the dealer and have them do an alignment under warranty.

hinhin7

My car is lowered almost about as low as Danny's car. I was still driving on stock tires, well at least until yesterday (about 15,000 miles on it + the guy at disc tire told me the tire would last about another $10,000 miles) and also, I drive hard.


Solihin

mmgrad

yeah, my car has about 26,000 miles, and most of that was run on OE stock rims/tires... of that, about 7,000 miles were run on my lowered suspension and I never once noticed any dramatic negative camber wear on my tires. Yes, I did have negative camber, but it certainly didn't show much wear on the inside edge of my tires... and my car is lowered about 2" from OE specs...

funky102

Hmmm... I somewhat noticed a definite difference in ride quality from stock to 18s but sometimes I'm not sure if the ride should be this uncomfortable at times. Sometimes, I feel like switching back to stock 16s or maybe 17s. The description you mentioned seems familiar. How can I tell if my shocks died? What should I ask them to check out next time I take it to the shop? Thanks Danny...

hinhin7

funky, have you ever cut your spring before? When did you lower your car? If you lower your car without changing the shocks, they would wear out soon (+/- a year or so). But if you ride stock, for a 2000 CLK, the shocks won't wear that fast.

Hope this helps,

Solihin

E55AMG99

How does lowering or cutting a sping cause a shock to wear out (assuming the shock is not bottoming out and suffering from a physical catastophic falure)? Lowered suspension kits typically have stiffer springs to reduce travel and prevent bottoming. Everything else being equal, don't these increased sping rates have a positive effect (less work) on shocks?

mmgrad

basically, with sport springs & OEM shocks, your shocks will end up being compressed more than it is typically compressed at. when it stays like that for a long duration, your shocks will give and may sometimes leak...

the most common sign of damaged shocks is that they will leak... but sometimes, shocks won't bleed, but you can feel that they are not responding the way they SHOULD be since you are using them in a manner different from the way they are designed

E55AMG99

It still doesn't make sense to me. The only shock that might have a problem is a gas charged unit that would be operating under greater pressure (increased compression of the pre-charged gas). Typical shock absorbers are circulatory pistons pushing oil through a metering valve. The oil is circulated back and forth from above and below the piston through the restriciton of the valve. Because the oil can reach equal pressure on both sides, the piston will come to rest anywhere along the full stock of the shock. While some have reactionary valves that close tighter if piston acceleration exceeds a certain threshold, oil pressure will still equalize. The amount of dampening is the same no matter where the piston is in the chamber, unless there is some kind of progressive metering based on piston position. Isn't this is the spring's job to increase compression and rebound ability as travel increases?

Ted Baldwin

with a stock suspension, you really shouldn't be having any of those camber issues...


.............Actually this is known problem with CLK's. I used to have this problem. The problem went away after i installed Kleemann suspension. I am not suggesting that you get a Kleeman suspension, because I have friends that have the suspension and still have inner tire wear. As has been said, what you need is a Camber correction. The BIG problem is where you can gop to get it. Ordinarily, your dealer should be able to solve this problem, but MB dealers as a rule don't fix things, they simply repkace things. And if nothing needs to be replaced, then they look at you with a blank stare. You just need a good mechanic to help you correct your camber in the opposite direction.

Ted

hinhin7

What would be the normal camber angle for a CLK? 1 degree?
I know this alignment shop in Seattle area that is really well known. My friend once had alignment there, if Im not mistaken he could set the angle for his car about a degree or so. He dropped his car lower than mine but he would be able to get about 1.2 or 1.3 degree angle.
The alignment alone is pretty expensive (well, for me it is), about $180.

I dont know if this is safe or not, if you really want to get the most life from your tire, swap the left tire with the right tire when the inner is almost worn out. Cause if you have inner wear problem, the outer should be fine. What do you guys think?

Solihin