Camber Kits...any knowledge/opinion

[Kiwi Phil]

My car is a '97 Ford Fairmont Ghia (toward top of the range).
A yr back insides of front tyres had lot of wear.
Bob Jane T Mart (national trye franschise) told Anita we needed a wheel alignment and 4 new tyres. On my a/c is the detail of wheel align and Camber check.
That was done.
1 month back car went in for annual mechanical check.
Front tyres (inside) worn to canvas. Had done 22K Kilometers.
John, worker reckons problem is with Camber.
Back to Bob Jane and they tell me my fault, should have had them check every 6mths. They wanted to do job right then. Said no.
Off to Bridgestone (2 good young guys have it).
They ask if it has a "Camber Kit" fitted. John says one is on it. They say I must of had it fitted as Fords don't come with them as standard.
When picked up the car, they said there was an issue. Yes there were Camber Kits, but there "no spacers, not one, in them". Had we been playing around with them ?, had we fitted them? had we had them off etc? No to all.
Anita purchased the car at approx 6mths of age with 17K on it. Was a Govt Luxuary car for a Med Specialist.
Questions:
1. If spacers had been missing for 9 yrs, would I have not had big problems before now.
2. Could Bob Jane T Mart have been able to rectify a camber problem without spacers, or did they remove them?, or worse still, did they just fill in the form, do nothing, and charge me.
3. Could spacers fall out
4. Aldo, did this car come with Camber Kits. I know we have never fitted them ($350 they cost). I am at a loss how they got there.

Bob Jane T are a bunch of ....'s. Anita got Nitrogen in last tyres. Didn't want it but said the guy was intimidating so said yes to get out. I rang him about it and he said she asked for nitrogen ($36).

Cheers
Phillip

 

[Dunaruna]

Re: Camber Kits...any knowledge/opinion

[colour=blue]Falcons of that era are renowned for scrubbing tyres - it was a factory stuff up with the front end geometry.

Does the vehicle track true?

After market camber/caster kits are a very popular and effective fix. The upper control arm mounts are replaced with longer bolts & harder bushes (polyeurothane) that allow shims to be added (or removed) so that camber/caster can be adjusted. The shims lock into place when the bolts are tightened. The only way that spacers can fall out is if the bolts loosened - you would hear a knocking noise. I doubt that they were fitted in the first place.

Most tyre dealers use pre-pubesent kids to do the front end alignments, if I were you, I'd find a small workshop that has an alignment machine - that way you will know that a qualified MATURE tech will be doing the job. Always ask for the before and after printout, all modern alignment machines are capable of doing that.

One last thing, IF the camber readings have changed for no apparent reason, it is possible that the lower control arm mount (the main cross brace) has cracked and is flexing in and out - I've seen a few do that. I believe there was a recall to rectify the problem, but you've missed the boat on that now.

 

[RPJS]

Re: Camber Kits...any knowledge/opinion

I totaly agree with Dunna on this.
I used to scrub front tyres on the Jag in about 15k miles, I always had the tracking checked when new tyres were fitted, I put the tyre wear down to a very heavy car being driven hard.
I got chatting to a mechanic for a race team, he thought that my tyre wear was high and sugested that they look at the car. Thier machine showed that the tracking castor & camber were all way off, 1/2 hour of adjusting everything and now I have a car that drives totaly differently I have put 22k on a set of tyres with many more left in them.