Possible causes of Negative camber on rear tyres

[sparky Paul]

Here's a view of the nearside rear.

I have had the car for a few years now. I have no reason to doubt the integrity nor professionalism of the garage that's done the MOT for the past few years.

I would say these issues with tyre wear have been there from the since I bought it a few years ago, but have got steadily worse. The road handling has never been great, but I wouldn't say it was dangerous. I'd have got rid of it if that was the case.

It's a bit crusty under there, but I've seen a lot worse.

If both sides are similar, and it's solid, it's not going to affect handling much.

If the axle is just bent, or weakened by internal corrosion, then an MOT tester could overlook it - they only check visually for corrosion, and generally don't poke about too much. It certainly could do with a good poke about with an implement, see if there's any rot. If it's solid, and doesn't look thinned around the drain holes, then it could just have been severely overloaded at some point.

Now on to the photo.

As Jocko says, it looks a bit fishy. The trailing arms always look a bit odd from that angle, but the bottom spring seat should be pretty much perpendicular to the wheel, and it doesn't look it. That tells me that the problem is in the lower part of the trailing arm, the bit you can see from the shocker outwards. Either bent from overloading, or the section is twisting due to corrosion inside. If it is corrosion and it snaps at 50mph, you're in trouble.

If it's a rot issue, I'm definitely with Jocko on this one, replacement axle time. There's one on ebay for 50 quid, but it's collection only.

If it's just been bent through overloading at some point in its life, then you could leave it as it is, it won't kill you... or axle replacement, camber shims, or God forbid, squaring it up with brute force.

It really needs a looking at, any decent garage should be able to work out what's going on under there.


Here's a Civic (similar axle) with a severe rot issue. If you reads the posts, Jazz get a mention too.

https://www.civinfo.com/threads/cracked-rear-axle-fn2.408234/

[sparky Paul]

That depends where you get it tested. You don't have to look too far in the UK to find somebody that will take it somewhere for a 'soft' test. I have no idea if the OP knows the MOT history of the car.

Ah, yes I remember those    I mistakenly thought those days were over with EU harmonisation of regs.  It still comes down to the tester I guess...

It still goes on. You can get a test on anything if you know the right people.

[Major clanger]

That Civic thread is absolutely shocking.  I agree with the guy who talks about reporting the MOT place to VOSA if indeed they passed it like that.