mgh

Ok before I get started, background: I'm a 20 year old college student who's still driving the first car she ever owned. I'm an RX fan, not owner, and I'm posting this cause I need advice.

Alright. My '93 civic has SEVERE alignment problems. I first noticed about 2-3 years ago that my tires wore fast. The problem has gotten much worse since then. When I first noticed, I took it in to get it realigned. They said that my alignment issues were unusual and they couldn't fix it without specialty parts. My camber angles are off, which while good for handling, is bad for my tires. I think that when I took it in, my front 2 tires were each off about a full degree.

Hondas aren't supposed to have camber issues. The parts they would have to order cost around 1500 dollars. I didn't have the money then, and the problem wasn't too bad. Plus the car itself only cost me 1700. Now however, I go through tires every 2000 miles. I keep a close eye on the wear, and when I see its starting to get bad (showing wiring), I get my tires flipped so that the wear is moved to the outside. Giving me a grand total of 4000 miles per tire. Attached are pictures of my tires immediately after getting them flipped.

Also: I've recently began over inflating my tires (max: 35 psi, actual: 40 psi cold) to see if I can get more wear on the middle instead of the outside, but that has little to NO effect. I don't know if the hot roads is eating my tires away faster, but the problem seems to have gotten worse in the hot months of April through July.

Any advice or information would be appreciated. Let me know if you need any more information on my piece o' **** honda. And don't force me to listen to your "Buy a new car" replies. As mentioned before, I'm an unemployed college student (read: broke as ****). My next student loan comes through in August, and with the extra I have left over I plan on buying a small bike (Ninja 250 probably) to get me around. But that's about as good as its going to get. Until then....

staticlag

i love texas. I have a ton of family there.

My advice is to buy the camber adjusters. They will solve your problem.

mgh

I'm hesitant in putting any more money into my car for these reasons:

- Everything has 217000 miles on it. Only the radiator is new (installed in May)
- My car is idling strangely. When its in neutral, it'll switch from 1000 rpms to 2500 every 3 seconds. Not all the time, but a decent amount. And there's no pattern to when this happens. Death is imminent.

lurch519

sounds like the iac (idle air control) valve may be bad. i had a similar issue with my 92 back in the day. nothing big. as long as its not burning oil like a rotary, youll be fine. it wont hurt anything for it to idle like that, just annoying

mac11

iTrader: (1)

it actually sounds like all your prolems should be pretty easily fixed. I would guess the idle problem is some kind of vacuum leak. having never specificlly owned a honda I would take lurch's advice on the specific part. You may also want to take that question to a honda specific forum though.

From the pics it looks like you have had some wrecks in this car. That is possibly contributing to the alignment being so far off. 1* of camber will NOT do that kind of damage to tires. Your camber and your toe both have to be off. Toe should be completely adjustable with NO aftermarket parts and you should be able to get adjustable camber bolts or plates fairly cheaply. I got a pair of camber bolts for my last car (also front wheel drive import like yours) for $30

Does your car pull to one side or the other? The way those tires are wearing on the outsides there is no way your alignment is off in a way that it can be good for handling.

If you were in the area I would take a look at it for you and try to help you out so I would be willing to bet you could find someone in your area either on this forum or a honda forum to give you a hand with your car. good luck.

oh, and BUY A NEW CAR!

yiksing

Yeah positive camber u have there is bad for handling and it looks like it could have been caused by that previous front collision of yours, bent stuff n such. Some parts need to be replaced.

mgh

If you read the entire post, you'd have seen that the pictures I posted are the tires after I had the tread flipped. The wear occurs on the inside of the tires. I just don't have a picture of the wear before I did this.

The camber issue I have is NEGATIVE.

mgh

I'm sure this is the case as well, but as I haven't tried to take it in in a while, I don't know what other damage I have done to it.

Sorry if I was unclear. My camber was a degree off when I had it checked out over 2 years ago. I'm sure its much worse now.

I'm googling this. I'll let you know what I find.

Car to the left pulls sometimes, but not badly. And like I told yiksing, those pictures are after I had the tread flipped on the tires. My wear occurs on the inside of the tires. Negative camber issues. Sorry I didn't post that before, but I didn't remember if it was negative or positive until I looked it up.

yiksing

Sorry my bad, missed that line

mgh

no worries, easy mistake to make

mac11

iTrader: (1)

are you meaning you are not like rotating them side to side but literally taking the wheels and turning them around and re-mounting them?

also just looking at your pics i noticed this. looks like your spring is bound up.

mgh

Yep. I pay them 10 bucks and they use their tire machine (I swear I could run it myself now) and flip the tires on their rims.

What does a bound spring mean? Sorry, I know a little about cars, just because of how often mine would break, but not much

mac11

iTrader: (1)

well - i could be wrong about this, this may just be how those springs are supposed to be BUt - look at the 3 coils of the spring that are the farthest towards the top. You see how they are pretty uniformly spaced? Now look at the large gap between the lower 2 coils. That spring could possibly be bound, collapsed, bent or cracked.

The spring being bound would be just want it sounds like....its bound or frozen up, possibly held in place and not able to move. I could be wrong, its just something I noticed going back over those pics.

Like I said, the thing to do would be to get on the Honda forums and find someone in your area that really knows those cars and get them to take a look at it for you.

lurch519

do me a favor. take some pics from the front of the car, wheels straight, from about 10-15 feet at about ground level.

Vasichko

iTrader: (1)

Find out what exactly you need ordered. I used to be deep in the Honda camp and have lots of hook ups. I have a buddy who owns a shop and they may have some of the stuff just laying around I could get you for cheap. Let me know and I can talk to him and give you his number.

Sucks about being in college and strapped for cash, I hated that. Other than that College Station is pretty fun. Nickel wells rocks. Good luck with everything.

Vasichko

iTrader: (1)

I dont think she would have to buy a camber kit if the car isnt dropped or on cut coils.

A buddy of mine had issues like this it was a combo of blown shocks and bad outer tie rod ends.

Then again it could also have some bad CV boots/trashed axles as well...

shinronin

i'm not intimately familiar with honda's, but the problem is likely just a pair of worn out front camber lobes where the cam, bolt, sleeve, and control arm bushing all likely need replacing (or some combo thereof).

when an alignment was attempted did the tech mention what happened when he tried to change camber?

RX8Maine

From the tire wear it looks like you must have way too much toe in. There coud be some positive camber also, but it would have to be really off (like plus 2-3 degrees) to do that by itself, and from the picture it looks like that is not the case. If the car has been in an accident, they will need to take measurements with the car on the ground, not up on the lift since the angles would all be off, as would be the needed corrections.

mgh

Thanks, I'll do what I can to find out what I need, but its harder than it sounds. I do plan on taking it in sometime soon. I'll let yall know what they say.

And who the hell has nickel wells? I'm 21 in less than 2 months. This is information I'm going to want. Did you know Midnight Rodeo closed? No where else to dance now.

mgh

Hondas aren't supposed to ever have the camber change, so there isn't a way to easily adjust it, thus the need for a specialty part.

mgh

The pictures were taken after I had the tires flipped on their rims. The wear occurs on the inside of the tire.

mgh

as requested:



right spring:



left spring:

mgh

I just now realized that, you know, MAYBE having my plates on there isn't a good idea.

More_Revs

I never own a Civic, but had an Accord with lot of mods. Camber on those cars are not adjustable, so if your camber is off, it's likely a suspension arm or the chassis is bended. I wouldn't think just camber would cause that much wear though, are you toe ok? If you're wearing the inside, that would be too much toe out.

Did the tech give you a print out when you did your alignment?

mgh

He did, and it had how much the camber was off on it, but that was so long ago, I'm sure I've thrown it away.

I don't know anything about toe in or toe out. Let me google it and find out more. I'll get back to you.

I'll try and get my car checked out tomorrow and let you all know what they say.