Hi All,

Just got new tires for our 245 v8 (bride wore the outer edges of the last ones (Dunlop Sport A2, 205/60HR-15) in about 16K miles, even though I was rotating them at every oil change.

I've had the car set for as much negative camber (tops of tires leaning towards center of car) as the technician can dial in, but that doesn't seem to help much. Is there something I'm missing, something else I should be doing, or is she just going around corners too fast?

BTW, I've checked the inner and outer tie rods and ball joints and they all check good. The car has IPD 25mm bars front and rear, along with boge turbo-gas shocks, so it turns pretty well . . . .

Thanks in advance,

Steve A-

Camber problems can just come from unibody flex. If things are too out of line, you can buy kits that move the strut top around.

I would look really close at the toe adjustment. If you were toe-in to much it would wear the outside of the tire and toe-out would wear the inside.

Camber has more to do with how the car drives and stays in the road and less with tire wear. The camber would have to be grossly out to cause major tire wear. I'm not saying that it won't wear the tires, I'm just saying that it has very little affect on tire wear. When I was in Auto Mechanics class (back in the dark ages) we worked on cars with HUGE camber problems that showed no real tire wear. When I worked for a Volkswagen dealer back in the 70's the service manager would tell us to check the toe and skip the camber unless the customer was complaining about the car pulling.

Just my 2 cents and as always, I could be wrong.

Have fun,
Tony T
--
Tony Turner 89 Volvo 240DL 257K, 92 Jeep Cherokee 250K, 93 Jeep Grand Cherokee 215K, 1980 Mercedes 240D 360K

Tony,

Thanks for the reply. I'll try staying towards the toe-d out side of the specs and see what happens.

Thanks again!

Steve A-

Looking at the Volvo Specifications Manula for 240 1986-1988:

Camber..............1/4 degree to 3/4 degree
- max difference between sides........1/2 degree.

Caster +3 degrees to +4 degrees. Cannot be adjusted.

Toe-in. Readings at tire tread center, tire inner shoulder, and rim.
Capital letters on rear of tire, lower case at front. Measurements taken at the plane parallel to the ground and through the wheel center. Vehicle loaded.

A-a 0.12" = 1/8" +/- 0.06"

B-b 0.08" +/- 0.04"

C-c 0.06" +/- 0.04"


I don't know if other years have different specs.

Your problem might be a toe-in problem.

Do you have a good independent ("indie") volvo shop to do alignment?

Good Luck,

Bob

:>)

Bob,

Thanks for the reply. I'll take a look at the toe-in on this car.

Best,

Steve A-