Fault With Front Passenger Side Alignments

[Guest Fee]

Just been in to have my wheels aligned....

 

The dude I had a fault on the front passenger camber.

 

Said that because the car had been lowered at the front (just put on new koni suspension) it should have a negative camber but it has a positive.

Front left is at 0*24'

Front right is at - 0*54@

 

He said this could be caused by one of two things...

1. Lower arm... Easiest and cheapest to replace

and if this does not fix it

2. Hub assembly

 

 

He didn't actually say what was wrong with them...just that there was a fault

 

What problems with them would be causing this?

[jonah 1]

I don't think it's either of those things. A (slightly) bent wishbone would change the caster but not camber by any significant amount. And the way that the hub assembly would have to bend to alter the camber, is virtually impossible to do.

 

The angles aren't far out anyway, yes you'd expect the camber to go negative on lowering with standard struts, but the Koni struts may have been designed to compensate for that. The front left is within spec (+/- 0*30') although the camber difference between left and right is a bit more than ideal.

 

Most likely things to cause this IMO are:

Bent strut (but unlikely since yours are new!)

Struts not seated correctly in hub carriers

Car at different height between left and right sides

Manufacturing tolerances

Minor accident damage - subframe bent or moved sideways relative to strut tops

 

Or maybe (partly) just an inaccurate measurement?

 

BTW for the wishbones alone to explain that much camber difference, the front left wishbone would have to be over half an inch shorter than the front right... that seems pretty unlikely, which is why I don't think it's a "fault" with the wishbone that's the cause!