Negative camber on rear wheels

vicwatson

Ok, I get the offside rear changed because the inside is wearing unevenly and is worm to the thread, about a year ago. I got the cars wheel alignment done.

One year on and the nearside rear has uneven wearing on the inside, jesus ! got new tyre fitted and the camber is very obvious to the untrained eye.

What do I have to do, what part needs fixing?, the thread is fine on the tyres yet they have to be skipped due to the uneven wear, always on the insides :mad:

Thanks for any solutions/advice, e39 bmw

biko

It sounds to me as if you have a suspension problem. Is car lowered or something?

Special Circumstances

Some bushing or other worn out?

Corner more aggressively so the wheel meets the road flatter? ;-)

Voodoomelon

E39s always have what looks like a very obvious negative camber on the rear wheels, so nothing to worry about there.

But with excessive wear on the inside, you either have bad alignment or worn suspension parts.
I'd be dropping into a good independent, get them to stick it up on a ramp and have a good route around with a crowbar to check for component wear. If there's nothing notably wrong, it's re-alignment time. Not everyone gets it right the first time.

vicwatson

biko wrote: »

It sounds to me as if you have a suspension problem. Is car lowered or something?

That's possible but no car not lowered

Special Circumstances wrote: »

Some bushing or other worn out?

Corner more aggressively so the wheel meets the road flatter? ;-)

Had bushings done last year

Voodoomelon wrote: »

E39s always have what looks like a very obvious negative camber on the rear wheels, so nothing to worry about there.

But with excessive wear on the inside, you either have bad alignment or worn suspension parts.
I'd be dropping into a good independent, get them to stick it up on a ramp and have a good route around with a crowbar to check for component wear. If there's nothing notably wrong, it's re-alignment time. Not everyone gets it right the first time.

The NEARSIDE rear has noticeably more negative camber though. How often to get tracking done ?

Voodoomelon

Did it have noticeably more negative camber on one side than the other right after the last alignment? There's no young E39s any more, a thorough check by a good garage would be my first port of call before potentially wasting money on another alignment. Could be any number of components causing it.

It only takes 10 minutes to check on a ramp, shouldn't be expensive.

visual

It is rear suspension ball joint that is worn
Don't waste money getting some young guy trying to adjust the nuts off the car to correct alignment. It won't solve the problem.

If you Google it you find lots of videos on you tube. It is a common problem had to do my own.

It a bugger of a DIY job to do yourself. But you can buy parts cheap on eBay.

vicwatson

visual wrote: »

It is rear suspension ball joint that is worn
Don't waste money getting some young guy trying to adjust the nuts off the car to correct alignment. It won't solve the problem.

If you Google it you find lots of videos on you tube. It is a common problem had to do my own.

It a bugger of a DIY job to do yourself. But you can buy parts cheap on eBay.

If this is the case would it not have been spotted in NCT ??

jca

vicwatson wrote: »

If this is the case would it not have been spotted in NCT ??

Not necessarily, the slack in the ball joint mightn't show until the wheels are hanging in the air and the joint stressed with a pry bar etc

visual

vicwatson wrote: »

If this is the case would it not have been spotted in NCT ??

It's common fault on the e39 and NCT won't pick it up until it is very obviously worn.

Just like most people getting alignment done are doing so because of worn parts. But only discover after a couple of alignments and uneven tyre wear that it's not a fix.

The tyre places that do alignment just charge for
Alignment so that's what they do.
If you think about it why would control arms have to be adjusted it's because something in the suspension has worn. You pop off to local alignment garage they adjust what they can to bring wheel back to true but don't actually replace anything.

The e39 ball joint is at the bottom of the wheel hub when it wears the camber of wheel becomes more negative. Alignment shops will adjust the upper arms in attempt to correct the camber but the ball joint at bottom is worn and will continue to wear even faster.

this rear ball joint connects bottom of hub to trailing arms. It not like a typical ball joint but more like a bushing joint. If the car is in air with wheel hanging at full drop you can use pry bar to check for movement between wheel hub and trailing arm.

Plenty of motor factors sell repair kits that include these ball joints and all the control arms.
Fitting the control arms and tie rods is simple enough changing the ball joint needs either a press or special tool to wind it out.

Your mechanic would most likely have done many of these before so if I was you that's where I start.

vicwatson

Thanks everyone. Mechanic Monday morning .