Uneven/ cross camber

[Chainedtomato]

Would a 0.25 degree difference in front camber cause a car to drift and not drive straight?

Tested on a flat bit of a car park and the opposite side of the road so it’s not the built in road camber causing it.

Alignment is within manufacture spec and the cross camber is within tolerance (0.25 cross camber max).

Toe is bang on aligned front and back and well within spec aswell.

I need to apply angle on the wheel to keep the car going straight ahead. If I center the wheel and let go while driving the car will start drifting towards the side with the most positive camber.

Surely a 0.25 difference wouldn’t cause such an impact?

Edited by Chainedtomato on Tuesday 27th February 20:12

[GreenV8S]

Chainedtomato said:

will start drifting towards the side with the most positive camber.

Do you really mean positive camber? That would be highly unusual.

Camber will produce a small side load and steering input - hard to guess how sensitive your particular car would be to that.

Tyre pressure and condition, and corner weights, can also make a difference. So can dragging brakes, but you'd probably notice other symptoms from that.

[Chainedtomato]

GreenV8S said:

Chainedtomato said:

will start drifting towards the side with the most positive camber.

Do you really mean positive camber? That would be highly unusual.

Camber will produce a small side load and steering input - hard to guess how sensitive your particular car would be to that.

Tyre pressure and condition, and corner weights, can also make a difference. So can dragging brakes, but you'd probably notice other symptoms from that.

I mean it drifts to the side with the least negative camber

Could swapping the front wheels help prove something?

[GreenV8S]

Chainedtomato said:

I mean it drifts to the side with the least negative camber

That's what you'd expect, but a quarter of a degree isn't enough to produce such an obvious effect as you describe.

Chainedtomato said:

Could swapping the front wheels help prove something?

Well, if that changed the behaviour then you'd know it was something to do with the tyres.

[ATM]

Chainedtomato said:

Would a 0.25 degree difference in front camber cause a car to drift and not drive straight?

This is one of mine. Are you saying you know your car is out by 0.25 on one side compared to the other?

If so I'd say that's a lot but I am no expert. Most cars run between 1 or 2 degrees. That's negative or positive. So lets say 4 degrees of total range.

If you think of it this way it's not 0.25 degree from a 360 range.

If you have 0.25 degree difference over a total range of 4 degrees that's 6.25% isn't it. A 6.25% difference feels significant to me.

If your car only has a range of adjustment of say 2 degrees then 0.25 is 12.5%. So now even more significant.

I am just guessing. But if I posted a print out with one side showing 1.00 and another showing 1.25 that would not look like nothing.

Saying all that the car's components do move around under load. But the only way we can measure this stuff is with the car stationary. And I'd say most alignment places will try to get this as close as possible. It's only if they can't they have to let you go with a difference from one side to the other. And this is either because some of the components are too worn or something is bent.

Did your alignment shop make a point of saying to you, sorry we couldn't get the camber to match?

[GreenV8S]

ATM said:

Most cars run between 1 or 2 degrees. That's negative or positive. So lets say 4 degrees of total range.

Camber is always negative. Positive camber went out with wagon wheels.

[LennyM1984]

GreenV8S said:

Camber is always negative. Positive camber went out with wagon wheels.

Our old (classic) Fiat 500 had positive camber but otherwise I agree.

To the OP is it 0.25 degrees or 25 minutes? Truthfully on a fairly normal car I wouldn't have expected 1/4 degree to make much difference in feel.