First, I'm not that knowledgeable about vehicles in general. Just getting that out of the way.

So, I have a 2009 Scion tC RS with the 18" upgrade, red/black theme, etc. My driving habits are pretty standard... mostly interstate about 35 miles/day on weekdays. My stock tires lasted about 25k miles before one of the rear ones blew out from the inner-track. The other rear tire was extremely worn also. I ended up replacing all 4 as the front two were getting there as well but nowhere near as bad as the rear two.

Being stock tires I just accepted it as the norm. Now, about 20k miles later on the new tires, I noticed some extremely loud vibration getting rapidly worse. I checked out the tires and the inside of BOTH rear tires are getting very worn while the rest of the tires are more than fine. I did get the tires rotated with oil changes and had two alignments despite no other alignment related issues with no improvement.

After getting new tires today (3rd set) at a local shop, they informed me that any other alignments I've gotten were only adjusting the toe in the rear because there's no camber kit, but that my camber was "way off". They said I can get a camber kit installed and fix it right up, which it sounds like I'll need to do BUT I gave my Toyota dealer a call to see how they handle this and they said Toyota doesn't make a camber kit so they would replace the struts. The local place seemed to disagree that replacing the struts would do much good... so here I am asking for more opinions.

After some searching online, it seems to be a general consensus that you shouldn't have to adjust the camber unless you've dropped the car or you're racing... so my primary question is trying to figure out why my camber is so far off? Given how the stock tires wore, it seems it may have been this way since factory.

One theory someone I spoke to had was that perhaps when the car is dropped for the RS model, it's still set like the standard Scion. This seems like a possibility but it'd be strange for a mass-produced vehicle to be put out like that.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

The release series comes lowered from the factory, stock. I doubt this is the case, but the car may potentially have a certain alignment setting that is used with the stock height, but not the lowered Release Series. Regardless, just get an alignment and call it a day

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking... it's the only thing I could think of to explain this but like I said, I'm not very knowledgable about this stuff.

Anyways, like I said, I have gotten alignments but they only adjust the toe on the rear and apparently the problem is the camber. So the question is if Toyota is correct that I should replace the struts to correct that or if I should get a camber kit so it can be adjusted.

 

The camber is able to be adjusted from the factory. Not sure why they told you that. Try going elsewhere.

 

go else where to get an alignment first instead of shelling out that money for a new strut which i doubt that it's the struts that are causing the problem

 

Everyone seems to be missing the main point =/

I've had multiple alignments that did nothing so I went to a new place and was told that the camber can't be adjusted without a kit and that any alignments done before did not fix the camber problems.

Jon mentioned that the camber can indeed be adjusted, so if that's true, what would a camber kit actually do? :/

 

A camber kit will allow you to past -4 degrees of camber. I'm not sure what it allows on the positive (+) side because I haven't seen anyone purchase a kit to run positive camber.

The stock arms can be adjusted. A member here, jeremydoc, even made a video on how to do it and posted it here.

 

This. im running almost 4 degrees of natural camber and my tires aren't wearing as bad as you're describing and if you're on the Trd springs you're camber shouldn't be as drastic. I'd say the shop you went to didn't do something they said they did and you're toe is still out. That eats up tires worse then camber. Also, the rear DOES have camber adjustment so that shop doesn't know what they are talking about or they just want to rip you off..

 

You don't need anywhere near -4degrees camber, not even on a race car.

There is indeed camber adjustment on the rear. I wouldn't go back the the shop that couldn't find the rear camber adjusters.

For street driving, take your car to a different shop, or heaven forbid- the evil dealer, and have them align to factory spec.

I have found a local shop that was recommended by a Grand Am BMW team, and I've been going there for years.

It would be to your benefit to learn more about your car. Ask questions of people you KNOW have experience.

 

nope i didn't miss your point cause the stock arms are adjustable and with only a trd drop it's not much. so sounds to me the alignment places you went to are clueless if they said the camber can't be adjusted

 

^^ +1000 the shop you're going to is CLUELESS. and just trying to make you spend $$ as well. The rear of the tC can have it's camber adjusted, there is a camber adjustment cam there, I know, I had the camber adjusted back there. you can even go to the scion tech section here and look up the rear suspension, it will show you how to adjust the rear camber! so you can see for yourself how its done.

EDIT: please find another shop, dont go back to that place, they're not that smart and who wants non-smart people working on your car? Not me!

 

Thanks for the responses. I called that shop back yesterday to mention what I found online and the response was to "take the car to those people... if you want us to fix it, you need a camber kit". Hah.

I then spoke to Sears (yeah yeah, I know... the people are at least nice to talk to at my local Sears though) and they were more helpful. They said the same thing at first but when I mentioned what I learned here, they said if there's a way to adjust it that they weren't aware of then yeah I wouldn't need a camber kit. They also said they couldn't do it though without trial and error because they just align to what the system tells them and it doesn't give a camber setting for the rear -- they recommended going somewhere that specializes in lowering and such.

I'll find somewhere that knows what they're doing and can fix it before I eat up these new tires but at least you guys saved me from dropping $150+ on a camber kit then installation.

Thanks much!

 

They're the ones that said they replace the struts when the camber is off. =/

 

Where are you located at to have such crappy unknowledgable shops? When I took mine in to Firestone the guy that worked on it couldn't have been any happier at how easy it is to set the toe and camber for the front and def the rear. Find another shop or give us an idea of your location and one could possibly make a recommendation. BTW, your car is lowered on TRD springs with OEM shocks, they should still be good unless you drive somewhere with really bad roads that would wear down the shocks prematurely.

 

I live in Morgantown, WV... it's a very "hilly" area that can be pretty bad with potholes but nearly all of my driving is interstate. I've hit a hole before that felt pretty rough but it didn't blow out a tire or cause any problems... that was quite awhile back, too.

Someone around here told me Good Year does pretty good so I can try there.

 

Here's a video of the rear camber adjustment, for anyone of those so called alignment shops say otherwise to you.