So I've been searching for other peoples solutions to this, but haven't found anything conclusive.

background:
The car is a 99 B5 with FWD and the rear driver side has excessive camber which is wearing away my tires. I went to get an alignment and I saw a -2.4 degrees of camber on this wheel. Passenger side is within spec.

Tried:
After speaking to the alignment, he said I could try replacing the struts first. I did so, considering how old the car was and was still on the original struts. Figured that'd possibly fix this problem, and give me motivation to fix another problem I've had for a while now. I went back to get another alignment and found the camber has not moved at all, it is still at -2.4 degrees, a difference of 0.7 degrees from spec.

Situation:
I am looking for other possible culprits before I throw down the $1000 for the rear axle beam that the dealer is asking for. I have been eyeballing the guide bushing as a possibility, but am very much open to suggestions before going forward with this fix.

thanks

 

i would say you prob have a bad lower control arm

 

Well this is a FWD model, not a quattro, so there's only a strut and an axle beam in the rear. I guess this should be +1 reason why I should have gotten a quattro model in the first place. Any other suggestions?

 

i wasnt sure how the fwd was set up have you bent the axle?

 

Something is bent, for sure. I don't think there is a camber adjustment. First thing i would try is struts. Is there toe adjustments? I'm not sure... If there are that could cause uneven tire ware as well

 

There is a toe and there is a camber adjustment. Sounds to me like you're alignment specialists isnt that great. You can do some cutting and welding to fix this. Have you checked the ride height on all 4 corners? Rears should match, and fronts should match. If the left rear doesnt match then I would say you've got an issue with your spring sagging. Which changes camber.

 

The fwd setup just has an axle beam. attached to the axle beam are guide bushings and the struts. I have just changed the struts to bilstein hd's on the factory springs. There wasn't a height difference on the springs either, which leads me to believe that there's some problem with the axle or the guide bushings.

I had checked out the axle beam and it didn't look like it was bent either, but I didn't measure anything out yet, just a straight eyeballing job. When I checked out the bently service manual, it says to replace the axle beam if there's a camber problem, but it's over 1k at the dealer and doesn't seem like it'd be worth it since I can get tires pretty cheaply.

 

there is not an adjustment on a fwd audi for camber. Google it

 

Just looked it up on my shops all data. Dont know why i second guessed my self. There is no adjustment for camber on the fwd audi... Gives the specs and says, "no rear camber adjustment. If out of spec check for worn or damaged suspension parts''

 

Thanks for the update, i mostly do alignments on quattro's i suppose. I also second what your saying, just checked my shops Alldata. I know the quattro's rear setup is a fully adjustable rear camber and toe through the accentrics. It would appear as though you could elongate the bolt hole for the hub/lower strut to axle beam though to give you the correct camber. I know on 944's we have to do this all the time because the rear banannas are aluminum and are always bent costing a billion dollars to replace so we just elongate the existing holes in the torsion tube to allow for correct camber.