lowered suspension and tyre wear

[stuartp]

i recently bought a modified clk cabrio 320 with carlsson suspension and 18" wheels with almost new tyres. now 4000 miles later one blew out and all the others have had to be replaced as they were dangerous. apparently it has been lowered too much and the insides of the tyres rub away on the road as they are cambered in to fit, any ideas or do you know of any place in the north that specialises in suspension etc for mb.

 

[simon]

Hi StuartP,
                I will slip this in( before Andy G starts on his excellent advice) quickly.If you try www.Mercedesshop.com & search the archives(Wheel/suspension section) you will find some very interesting & informative inputs.I suspect its a question of correctly altering the camber/toe in  to suit the reduced ride height.
If you want  a specialist in the North with high quality equipment try E mailing HJ direct on www.honestjohn.co.uk...but Andy is in Birmingham!!!

regards
Ernest.

 

[Andy]

Hi,

One of the biggest missconceptions around, is that if you fit lowered springs, there is nothing else to do. This is not a problem IF you don't go overboard. If the vehicles like a F1 racing car every pot hole in the road you hit brings up sparks like they are going out of fashion from the exhaust bouncing of the road.

The problem is mainly the camber angle. (When you look at the front of the wheel from the front of the car the angle the tyre lies in to the body. From the vertical, if it leans towards the body, this is termed negative camber, the more it leans out away from the vehicle from the vertical this is positive camber. Vertical being zero. Camber of the wheel is given to help with the handling \ conering of the vehicle Hope you understand?!?!?!) Anyway on older vehicles you can adjust the camber quite substantially ie 123,126,201,124,early 140's. But the adjustment very rarely brings them back into any reasonable readings. The later cars 202,203,208, 210's Cclass's clk's slk's etc are adjusted by modified bolts which move the figures for the camber.

When you lower the car you will notice that the wheel has more negative camber. On wide tyres this will have a drastic effect on tyre wear. Its not so bad on say 195/65/15. The amount of tyre which is incorrectly set and in contact with the road is less than the 235or245 40/17or 18 a lot of people fit to the vehicles. MB when lowering their vehicles also take this into account. So the suspension components are different, different lengths etc so the vehicle can have maximum tyre life as well as handling.

So when your ordering your AMG or SPORT or even BRABUS. They don't wear out tyres, well not due to incorrect wheel alignment, because the suspension has been modified to suit.

This dosn't help "startup" what you might try, as I am assuming that the vehicle is very low. Is try another set of lowering springs to bring the vehicle's road height up a little.

Hope I have been a little help.

Regards
Andy @ www.mercedesservicing.com