gafitanu

Plutoe

You use WIS to answer those questions-------you have WIS get off the couch and search!!

gafitanu

Rudeney

A few thoughts on this...

If you look at the WIS doc you found, you'll notice that the proper camber is a bit negative. Because of this, if you have a bad toe adjustment, the inner edge of the tire will wear prematurely. So, the first thing I'd do is get an alignment check and if toe is off, then have it adjusted. And as you have found, toe is the only alignment adjustment that can be made on the rear.

If the camber is off, the two parts that would affect it are the Thrust Arm (lower control arm) and the Camber Arm (top control arm). Also, there are aftermarket control arms that are adjustable for camber.

gafitanu

Thank you Rodney. I will check the toe, hope that is the problem. Although I am using one of those magnetic gages I get over 2.5 negative degrees on the left. I will go to a shop to have an alignment check.

kbob999

If your car is lowered, you will get additional negative rear camber. Wider tires exaggerate the wear.

I bought a pair of rear camber links from an ebay seller 'snooozie' and they dial the camber to whatever you'd like. I think I went to -1 degree.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mercedes-Be...NZbYm2&vxp=mtr
Might want to get these.

FYI - I may have the old stock upper links if you'd like then for replacements. Send me a PM.

Lorinser 55

I bought the links from Snoozie as well but have not installed them yet. I have an ‘03 SL55 that has been lowered and has slightly wider tires in the rear. I’ve been wearing out the very inside (and I mean very close to the rim itself) part of the tire. The rest of the tires looks brand new. I had a fairly recent alignment done from the dealership so I can’t imagine the toe being off. Trying to properly adjust the alignment on a lowered car is a bit of a trick but regardless my camber is more negative over stock because it’s lowered. My front is wearing the inside as well. If I can get the rear camber links installed Mercedes dealer said they will do a four wheel alignment and install eccentric bolts on the front to take care of the negative camber on the front. My question is - do the rear adjustable camber links install as easy as they look or do you need to remove other parts (like the struts) to get them on there?

kbob999

Your tire wear sounds typical for the car...same as mine.

If I recall correctly, I only needed to unbolt the top link to fit the links from Snooozie. You may run into interference with the strut, but it is only at full extension, not in compressed condition. Compress if required.
Snooozie revised the design after my difficulties fitting the straight link, to an offset link, and the strut interference is likely not a factor.

It is a tight fit for the spline socket to access the bolts, and they are on there snug, so eat your proteins first and hit the gym.
May take a couple passes before you get the camber set 'close enough' to get to the alignment shop. Use the old link as a gauge to set the new link length before install.

Note that the slotted camber bolts for the front end bushings will only adjust maybe 0.5 degree. It won't be enough to take out 1-2 degrees you may have now. You may want to go with further aftermarket items.
The money you save in tires will pay for this work quickly.

Lorinser 55

Thanks for your input! I’ll share with my mechanic.

Anybody else able to do these without removing major parts?

MikeJ65

Not to hijack the thread, but does anyone have the lengths of the stock links? I have the lowering links with terrible camber wear and would like to adjust it back to the stock position.

Lorinser 55

Not hijacking at all. I want to add that if your car is lowered and running more negative camber over stock, if you allow your tires to run below normal air pressure they may not look low on the outside because a lot of that part of the tire has no weight on it and may look fine but if you get up underneath and look at the inside, all of the weight is on the inside of tire and the rim will actually eat through the sidewall. That’s what happened to me. Until you get your negative camber situation resolved always make sure you are running adequate if not slightly greater air pressure. And of course always drive with a suspension at the highest setting.

A1EK

Just to add my experience of rear camber adjustment on Mercedes, I have had E Class, C Class, 190E, CLK and they are all pretty similar. Things to mention are:

If you have lowered the car the top of the wheel will lean inward more as part of the linkage design and therefore cause wear on in the inner part of the tyre.
If you have toe out on the rear it will scuff the tyre and cause inner wear
If you have worn links this will have the same affect as the first point and cause inner wear
If you under inflate tyres it can cause some wear on inner and outer
If you over inflate, the centre of the tyre may wear
If you have wider rear tyres they tend to wear in the middle as the 'balloon' at speed plus inner wear.

Things I have done to avoid wear:
Undo the pivot arm bolt on the main arm at the bottom and have a look at the hole, it will be elongated, you can get about 2mm additional movement which will aid camber. The camber is so delicate and the slightest adjustment make large charges. If you loosen both main pivot bolts and jack up the rear so wheels off the ground, then using a ratchet strap pull the bottom of both wheel arms together as much as possible, then re-tighten bolts. This has the affect of bringing the bottom of the wheel in, i,e, straightening the vertical angle.

Further things you can do are to use off-set bushes that allow the bolt to again move inwards and give the above desired result.

If you are feeling brave, you can hand file very diligently the inner edge of the elongated mount hole to allow the bolt to move further and bring the rear wheels back to a more vertical line, you can then go to a garage and with alignment set accurately.

cdk4219

I know this is an old thread, but I purchased these from snoozie (these are Camber King parts)as well. Save your money for something else. They hit the hydraulic ABC line, and if your car is lowered they hit the frame when going over bumps. They are a bad design. I messaged him about this and these were his replies.









One of the pictures shows the car at ride height, it is lowered, but if it weren’t, I wouldn’t have an issue with too much camber and I wouldn’t need adjustable arms.

A couple of pictures under the car are it at ride height and the bar that is 7/16” from the frame. The 2 pictures of the bars themselves are after driving in and out of my street, the marks are where these bars hit the frame. I drove 1000 feet or so. If you hit a really big bump, that upper arm is going to be the bump stop and more than likely break or bend.

The other snaps are his responses to my problem. For $600 these are junk. They aren’t designed well, even though they could have been. Unfortunately I purchased these 6 months ago and have little recourse.

In his behalf he was very responsive, but as you can see his fix was cutting the frame because these arms aren’t designed to be in the factory notch that would help clearance, which they could have easily been. The bigger problem for cars with factory ABC still in place is the fact that the arm rubs against the strut hydraulic line, and will probably wear it through eventually.

One picture is also the description of why yiu would purchase this product for this car. Nothing is said about possibly hitting the frame though. Again really wouldn’t need these if the car wasn’t lowered unless something was really worn or bent in the rear suspension

K-Mac

Do point out with only basic toe adjustment OEM we manufacture complete range of both front and rear adjuster kits to suit all Mercedes Benz models (1968 to 2023) allowing to compensate for costly, premature excess edge tire wear.

Front Camber and Caster
Rear Camber (and extra Toe)

Re “rear suspension” - yes we do manufacture replacement upper Camber arms - but only promote for owners wanting to “increase” negative Camber to allow more outer fender clearance for extra wide tire fitment !

For those wanting to resolve common “excessive inner edge tire wear” recommend our lower arm adjuster kits.

Advantages being:
Retains the important clearance top of tire to outer fender.

Easier to install and access.

Ultimate accuracy re alignment - Fast accurate single wrench, direct on alignment rack “under load”.


R230 ALL MODELS:

See Spoiler









AUDI to VOLVO - K-MAC Experience Of Resolving OEM Suspension Shortcomings Since 1964 !