Are camber correction kits worth it?

[Gentilly7]

I hate the premature uneven rear tire wear on my 2016 Model S. Camber correction kits run about $1200 for parts and labor. Is this really worth squeezing out the additional miles you will get from tires? Anybody had some installed and can report back getting a significant increase in tire mileage?

I’m also concerned about doing an aftermarket suspension modification that may cause other problems.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Nope. Driving in low full-time does for me for free what expensive camber kits claim to do. Plus the car looks triple OG.

 

[Gentilly7]

Nope. Driving in low full-time does for me for free what expensive camber kits claim to do. Plus the car looks triple OG.

What??? Low full time should increase the negative camber. It actually improved it for you?

 

[Ostrichsak]

What??? Low full time should increase the negative camber. It actually improved it for you?

Typically, with every other car I've owned, that's the case. Our second model S had springs and I noticed the ride height was slightly taller than our first Model S that had SaS set to the low setting. It annihilated the inner tread on the front two tires. I regularly reach my hand in and "feel the tread depth on my tires and nothing ever lead me to believe I should even measure or be concerned. It wasn't until I started losing air in the front right tire that I took it into Discount Tire. I assume it was either a nail or possibly the dreaded cracked Tesla wheel that's somewhat common on these causing the slow leak. They told me the tires were shot and, based on my experience over the decades "feeling" the tread I was in disbelief. He took me out and showed me that the inner tires were down to the steel belt and then some. That's where the leak was coming from is we actually wore through the belts, which is just crazy to think of how unsafe that condition was.

I read someone someone said about the low setting for better input angle on the half shafts which is especially important on the performance versions of these cars but all can benefit from it. I also saw another note about some saying that their tire wear was also better and more uniform. This seemed counter to what lowering a car (w/o camber correction/alignment) would do to the tire wear but, what the heck. I've kept all of my cars on the lowest setting since then and my tires wear incredibly even. In fact, I go through tires like crazy and always get the prorated warranty replacement credit due to low tread not meeting the tread wear warranty. You can't take advantage of this is the tires wear uneven and I haven't had that happen since.

I know that's incredibly anecdotal but it's been my first-hand experience across 5 different Model S's now and I know that it's better for the half shafts due to the flatter input angle and geometry so that's how I'm rolling from here on out. I know that, many years ago, Tesla pushed an update to all SaS cars to increase the ride height of each setting due to the risk of a battery pack strikes. I think there was a situation where someone sued them because they ran over a high receiver on a highway that punctured their battery pack. Tesla increased ride height across the board and started making armor plates to help protect the battery packs. So, if you think about it, the Low setting now is more like the "Normal" ride height from when these cars first came out.

Bringing back to the topic of this thread, I think if your concern is inner tire wear the toe ends up being more of the problem on these cars than the camber.

 

[Gentilly7]

Very interesting take, I appreciate you taking the time to write this up. I do remember the whole fiasco about the guy with the punctured battery and Tesla pushing the update to raise the height of the car. I was disappointed that my lowest setting barely seems lower than the normal ride height. I will give this a try and see what happens as I’m down to 5/32 on my current set of tires anyway.

 

[demundus]

What??? Low full time should increase the negative camber. It actually improved it for you?

Partially true, and partially achievable.

I machined my own set for my 2013 after mowing through two sets of tires and my alignment shop unable to do anything about the rears. I drive in low "full time" as well, however when you decrease speed from wherever you are to 0 and you were in low, the car will return to normal height. If you do extended highway driving you'll be in low for as long as you maintain whatever the trigger speed is (i forget at the moment). So its not really possible to "always be in low" to combat the toe wear. And even in low there is still toe wear, put it on a rack and measure.

I dont know what the kits sell for these days, but our tires are fairly pricey and if you drive alot, I'd say it could be worth it... YMMV and all personal preference. Something else to consider is if you have control arms snap, as some members have (and are trying to get a safety case opened against Tesla on... havent kept up on that drama) then you'd be hard pressed to have any remediation in that realm if it happened to you as well.

 

[beatle]

What size are your wheels? On 19" and 20" wheels (square setup w/245s) I have not had a problem with uneven tire wear. Those with uneven wear seem to always have 21" wheels. If you are on 21s and aren't married to the look, I would put the $1200 towards a set of 20" wheels or even a set of 19s. As an upside (aside from a more comfortable ride), they will be easier to remove and resell when you want to sell the car vs. a set of camber links, and no worries about warranty service.

 

[Gentilly7]

Partially true, and partially achievable.

I machined my own set for my 2013 after mowing through two sets of tires and my alignment shop unable to do anything about the rears. I drive in low "full time" as well, however when you decrease speed from wherever you are to 0 and you were in low, the car will return to normal height. If you do extended highway driving you'll be in low for as long as you maintain whatever the trigger speed is (i forget at the moment). So its not really possible to "always be in low" to combat the toe wear. And even in low there is still toe wear, put it on a rack and measure.

I dont know what the kits sell for these days, but our tires are fairly pricey and if you drive alot, I'd say it could be worth it... YMMV and all personal preference. Something else to consider is if you have control arms snap, as some members have (and are trying to get a safety case opened against Tesla on... havent kept up on that drama) then you'd be hard pressed to have any remediation in that realm if it happened to you as well.

You actually can set it to low all the time. If you slide the speed setting all the way to the left it will set to low all the time. I do have the concern of some other suspension problem arising and Tesla sees the mod and won’t touch the car. I still have my drivetrain warranty.

 

[Gentilly7]

What size are your wheels? On 19" and 20" wheels (square setup w/245s) I have not had a problem with uneven tire wear. Those with uneven wear seem to always have 21" wheels. If you are on 21s and aren't married to the look, I would put the $1200 towards a set of 20" wheels or even a set of 19s. As an upside (aside from a more comfortable ride), they will be easier to remove and resell when you want to sell the car vs. a set of camber links, and no worries about warranty service.

Indeed I have 21” wheels but I bought a pair of Model X 20” slipstreams that I will put on once my current tires wear out. You make a good point. Do you ride in low setting all the time? How often do you have your tires rotated?

 

[demundus]

What size are your wheels? On 19" and 20" wheels (square setup w/245s) I have not had a problem with uneven tire wear. Those with uneven wear seem to always have 21" wheels. If you are on 21s and aren't married to the look, I would put the $1200 towards a set of 20" wheels or even a set of 19s. As an upside (aside from a more comfortable ride), they will be easier to remove and resell when you want to sell the car vs. a set of camber links, and no worries about warranty service.

i have 19s, the wear has always been immense before i replaced the rear links.

 

[demundus]

You actually can set it to low all the time. If you slide the speed setting all the way to the left it will set to low all the time. I do have the concern of some other suspension problem arising and Tesla sees the mod and won’t touch the car. I still have my drivetrain warranty.

Unless this is a newer firmware/software feature, even when it says "all the time" its never all the time, it returns upon coming to a stop at the bare minimum. I believe on mine the lowest is 55mph, i havent looked in a long time though so i will double check.

 

[beatle]

Indeed I have 21” wheels but I bought a pair of Model X 20” slipstreams that I will put on once my current tires wear out. You make a good point. Do you ride in low setting all the time? How often do you have your tires rotated?

Yes, the car is in low pretty much all the time. My tire rotations are erratic, but are somewhere between 7k and 15k. I do find that the rears wear just a bit faster than the front (1/32")

 

[beatle]

Unless this is a newer firmware/software feature, even when it says "all the time" its never all the time, it returns upon coming to a stop at the bare minimum. I believe on mine the lowest is 55mph, i havent looked in a long time though so i will double check.

That does not sound right. As far back as I can remember, the "always low" setting kept the suspension in low unless you have a location saved that will auto raise your suspension. If you have one of those saved, you can go to one of those locations and go to the suspension page. There will be a little message above the suspension height setting that says, "auto raise at this location" or similar with a little "x" next to it. You can remove the location by tapping the "x" which should bring your car back down to earth.

 

[Ostrichsak]

I think that the ride height thing is confusing and the option you would think allows you to stay at low at all times doesn't actually do that as I recall. Every time I get another Model S (which is quite frequent as you can probably tell from my sig) I have to take a beat to play the "what setting did I decide my suspension should be in again?" game. I believe it's the "never" option you want which is counterintuitive but works if you want your car to stay in low at all times. Not 100% sure on that but I do know whichever one is the right one is counter to what you would think.

As to wheel diameter, that story I told above with the steel belts on the inside contact patch was on 19's. I run either 19's or 20's exclusively and always squared. I also rotate every 3k miles.

Somewhat related: I also had a lower control arm snap on one of my cars as I was reversing out of parking spot at a local breakfast joint. I created an embarrassing situation that lasted several hours where we were blocking traffic flow and even nearly resulted in a physical altercation moments before the tow truck driver finally arrived. That wasn't fun. At all. I've heard many horror stories of these things snapping apparently from being under-engineered (very few things on these cars fit that descriptor IMO) to handle the forces involved by these vehicles.

 

[Kaveman]

Have a look for yourself... 21" Wheels, right around 40K miles. Fronts wore perfectly, rears, not so much. Added a set of HardRace camber arms, running in "Standard" mode and the new tire are wearing perfectly. No negative camber wear out anymore.
My $.02
Kaveman

 

[Noahweb]

My ‘17 100D as the 21” Turbines (square setup), and I installed the n2itive Lowering Links and Camber/Toe Adjustment arms. This was largely to address the shudder issue under hard acceleration and secondarily the problematic S/X rear camber/toe adjustment. In the ~20k miles, it has been exceptional and no abnormal tire wear! I lowered the car 3/4” on all four corners and have had zero issues with road debris or ride quality. There is a slight efficiency gain. Plus you have gained significantly more adjustable camber and toe than the OEM eccentric bolts will allow.

The rear camber and toe arms are difficult to install, as well as get the alignment correct, but absolutely worth the cost if you are out of warranty.

Would recommend to any S/X owner!

Eliminate Inner Tire & Premature Half-Shaft Wear On Tesla X/S!

Finally you can properly align your Tesla Model S or X to completely eliminate inner rear tire wear and premature half-shaft wear!

n2itive.me

 

[dark cloud]

Just got a set of Hardrace camber and toe arms and it was nowhere near $1200. Less than half of that with free shipping from Europe with an awesome Black Friday deal. N2itive are nice for sure, but a little overkill IMO. It's not like people can see these on the car when you park. Hardrace have been making suspension pieces for many years on the other side of the planet; I haven't read about any issues.

Have a current alignment with 0.7 and 1.1 negative degrees of camber on low height, should be much better tire wear going forward, not that it was ever that bad with the 19" wheels They have only been on the car for a few weeks and with plenty of ice and snow on the ground haven't had a chance to really push the car, but so far so good.

 

[dustinfl]

I think that the ride height thing is confusing and the option you would think allows you to stay at low at all times doesn't actually do that as I recall. Every time I get another Model S (which is quite frequent as you can probably tell from my sig) I have to take a beat to play the "what setting did I decide my suspension should be in again?" game. I believe it's the "never" option you want which is counterintuitive but works if you want your car to stay in low at all times. Not 100% sure on that but I do know whichever one is the right one is counter to what you would think.

On my car, it's setting the lowering speed to "Always", lol.

It's weird because it seems like it could be talking about how fast the car will lower itself. But it's really to set the speed at which the car should be traveling in order to automatically lower the car. And of course, "always" and "never" aren't really speeds lol

"What's an ideal speed for neighborhoods?"
"Always."

I bit the bullet and ordered links with a camber adjustment kit. I've lived with a lowered car before, and tires were always an issue until I got a camber kit and straightened everything out. So I figured I'd do it properly from the beginning this time.

 

[Chan Meas]

What size are your wheels? On 19" and 20" wheels (square setup w/245s) I have not had a problem with uneven tire wear. Those with uneven wear seem to always have 21" wheels. If you are on 21s and aren't married to the look, I would put the $1200 towards a set of 20" wheels or even a set of 19s. As an upside (aside from a more comfortable ride), they will be easier to remove and resell when you want to sell the car vs. a set of camber links, and no worries about warranty service.

I have both the 21" turbine and 19" winter package. The 21' tires do not last long at all. I've read many Model S owners complain about uneven tread as well. What I do is tske it to a shop every 3,000 miles and flip them inside out and rotate. Doing that is a hassle but it keeps the tires longer. Close to 10,000 miles more. The 19" winter package tires drive much smoother and lasts longer.
Hope this helps.

 

[Chan Meas]

I have both the 21" turbine and 19" winter package. The 21' tires do not last long at all. I've read many Model S owners complain about uneven tread as well. What I do is take it to a local tire shop every 3,000 miles and flip them inside out and rotate. Doing that is a hassle but I am able to keep the tires longer. Close to 10,000 miles more. The 19" winter package tires drive much smoother and tires do last longer. I no longer buy the expensive tires for this reason. I buy the mid level tires knowing I'll need to buy another set within 18-25, miles. (for 21')
Hope this helps.