dllhg

I hate how fast my inner tire wears compared to the rest of the tire. Front and back. Last tires lasted 7K miles and belts started showing on the inner tire but had TONS of tread left on the rest of the tire.

I know the neg Camber is better for handling but can also hurt your straight line acceleration not to mention wearing tires out like crazy. Local tire shop said they can add a $20 camber bolt and make it flat. He warned me it might not handle like I am used to. Said he had a new M5 come in and did the kit. Guy returned saying it didnt handle as well but still wanted to keep the kit on for tire wear.

anyway, looking for some feedback on this topic. Seems to me perhaps a happy medium could be made. Leave some neg camber in but maybe remove like 50% of it should get a lot more tire wear and some better acceleration times.

bbirdwell

I just posted this on the W210 section. I installed a set on my '99 E55 but not the '05 E55 as the alignment on it is still where I want it.


https://mbworld.org/forums/6122001-post4.html


You may be better off with an adjustable camber bar in the rear (see my link in the other post). If your car is lowered with wider tires, you may want to go with the Kmac kits.


Good luck to you.

StarvingArtist

Wow, I thought I was the only one crazy enough to do home spun alignments. Props man! I just put in k-mac all the way around and dialed it in exactly the way I wanted it.

cij911

I'm assuming the shop is talking about the factory MB camber bolt...if so, it really won't change your camber too much (meant for stock height cars). I am actually considering raising my car back to near stock heights to improve the ride and tire wear.

dllhg

My car is factory height. Well I lower it in twisty roads with sport mode button. Can I get away with a regular longer camber bolt ?

Did you guys get rid of all neg camber or just some so your car still handles decently ? Even wearing tires would be awesome.. My last tires would have gone 10-12K instead of 7K if it was even wear.

chiromikey

If your car is stock height then (barring warn parts) it's an alignment problem. Alignments are one of the only things I'll take the E to the dealership for!

James M

I have experienced the same problem and did the camber bolt replacement, but it does not take long for it to go out of whack again. I wore the inside tread of my front tyres to the canvas - because the outside always looked fine when I had a quick look. Recently, I replaced my rear tyres and can clearly see far more wear on the inside of the tread than on the outside. This does not happen to my friends CLS55 and I noticed a big difference in the way we drive. He leaves his suspension on 'Comfort' setting and mine stays permanently on the 'Sport 2' setting. This makes sense as with the car always lowered the tread will wear more on the inside of all 4 tyres. Another thing I have noticed is that my car is a 2003 and I still have the original air struts working (always lowered into Sport 2) whereas my friend has replaced both front struts on his 2006 CLS55 (Always in comfort). Is this just coincidence or could I be onto something here?

austingtir

Its deff worse in sport 2.

I fitted a set of four bolts to the front of my car. You can get maybe half a degree of camber out of it if your really lucky. But you can also dial out the castor a bit. And then file out the upper ball joints as discussed in another thread and take more castor out.

Imo this makes a massive difference to the turn in feel of these cars.


For my wheel alignment I use two straight steel plates cut to a rectangle (about 300mm high and 500mm long 5mm thick steel) and with slots on each end to run two tape measures either side of each front wheel to each slot in each plate. This does the front toe piece of ****. As long as your steering is centered and just get it as close to 0 as possible or 1mm of toe in.

Then you can use the same steel plates with a digital inclinometer with a laser and put one of the plates you used on the front on the same side as the other plate but on the rear wheel shoot a laser level (magnetic) to the front centre of the hub or the steel plate and measure. Do same on the other side. Then do the same as you did on the front axle with the steel plates and tapes across. Shooting the laser to the front obviously gives you an idea of which way to adjust to get the rear wheels pointing in the same plane towards the front evenly. Then use the tapes to get the actual toe measurement. Mine had 5mm of toe in. Adjusted it back to 2mm. Obviously these measurements will vary to how long your plates are so I just go off the total toe and get it to within 1mm of where I want it. Never had a problem with this.

You also use the digital inclinometer on the front to do camber. Castor is wherever it ends up as long as you file evenly I dont see an issue with it. These cars have way to much castor for the style of roads (windy) in my country.

Why people mess about with string and crap these days is beyond me. This is more than close enough and most wheel alignment shops are to damn lazy to get even this close.