05-23-2024, 04:53 PM
This post was last modified 05-24-2024, 08:07 AM by VulcanWerks.
(05-22-2024, 06:57 PM)CCoburn Wrote: The tires are 235/40/18, and your assessment of "camber" is spot-on because that's what the tech was referencing although I don't recall that terminology being used. I do pay a lot of attention to the tires, but I'm not overly familiar with camber so wouldn't be looking for the effects of that, and aside from the bubble on the outer sidewall I haven't noticed any uneven wear handling/driving issues.
The "life" of 'some' of my tires hasn't been very long lately due to a number of reasons:
1. One time at night I hit a piece of metal in the road which basically caused a blowout(front right).
2. I then had the above tire replaced, but it was losing a few pounds of air every couple days(maybe a rim problem), and Town Fair was only doing drop-offs, so I went with the Fix-A-Flat and that did the trick. It was around six months or so after that the sidewall bubble appeared on the same tire. I think the initial leak was around the bead.
3. Another time(less than a month ago)I was on my way home and there was an inner sidewall leak for some unknown reason, and I replaced that tire(front left).
These cars don't come with a spare; just some cheap compressor and sealant that just made a mess on my rim and not much else. I've been thinking about acquiring a spare or at least a plug kit or something - spare would be best though. If it's only a minor leak then my hand pump with a gauge might get me home if it's not too far.
Of course I have AAA as a fail-safe, but I don't really care much for having my car towed. Luckily I haven't had any serious problems in some of the more remote areas I've traveled to.
I’m sure you googled it, but camber relates to how flat the tires sit on the ground. Most cars have “negative camber” meaning the top of the rim (when mounted) is closer to the frame than the bottom. Idea being that if you turn a corner, the contact patch of the tire actually gets better or stays large to enhance grip. E.g. you aren’t up on your sidewall.
Positive camber is an issue and that means something is wrong with your alignment/suspension/strut tower.
When I used to track my e30 bmw I had more-less neutral camber in the rear and a few degrees negative up front - put as much power down as you can and this also allows you to pivot the car/mudulate the rear with power.
Then again, maybe you’re just driving it hard enough that you’d benefit from going down a little bit in sidewall thickness and up in width.
Volvo’s are underrated cars in terms of performance - you can make monster power out of those things on pump gas.
