Suppose a car's nearside rear wheel is in camber spec, but the offside was out of spec (negative) by lots, what would the effect of that be? I'm assuming it would pull, but which way? Also which side of the tyres would wear?

Negative camber will tend to wear the inside edge of the relevant wheel.

I don't think you'd necessarily get a pull on the steering but I'm pretty sure the car will feel different turning left from right (proabaly a tendancy to understeer more when turning right.

I suspect the RH trailing arm may be bent. If it was the beam itself, I think you'd get excess camber (probably positive at that, since most beam abuse causes it to bent up in the middle) both sides.

Being a mk 1 an alignment won't sort this either as theres nothing to adjust, there are people who can shim the rear beam but it's very specailist work so expect to pay mega money, iirc £300 was a figure thrown around at some point

I have noticed that the nearside rear is wearing on the outside.

I will have to look up the chart with the figures on and scan it onto here.....

Edited 15 February, 201115 yr by 2SkodaFamily

That sounds easy. DO you have a figure called something like "rear thrust axis"? If so, I'm betting it's not 0 +/- $tolerance. What it means is that the back axle is trying to pull the car sideways across the road.

I'm sure that there is a rear thrust axis figure. The rear sometimes feels like its skipping to the side when I go over a bump....

Ok,

It looks like thrust angle is -0degrees 1 minute. (0d1')

Nearside rear camber is -1 degrees 23'

Offside rear camber is -1 degrees 38'. Spec is apparently -1d17' to -1d37'.

From the diagram I've got all the other values are right in the middle of the ranges given.

So it seems that the rear camber is not as far out as I remembered. Something not right though.

Annoying, I still have to steer slightly left to go straight. However sometimes its straighter than others if you get my meaning. I can't feel any knock through the steering if I steer left or right at a standstill, so I don't think its track rod ends. Would knackered wishbone bushes cause this variability?

Rear toe (total) is +0d21' . Nsr is +0d9', osr is +0d12'.

Sounds like you either have worn rear axle bushes or a bent rear axle,has somebody jacked it up using the rear axle recently?

The static figures seem fine, but the wear pattern is charactoristic of excess RH negative and LH positive camber, or a mis-aligned thrust axis, as is the pull. On that basis I'd say Mikey's got to be right, and worn bushes don't always show up in static geometry checks.

Just out of interest and a bit of a hijack

How does mine look, spookily a year ago yesterday lol

Going in again soon as I have had a few bits done since, I'm getting wear on the OSF outer edge

Fatty, from that I'd say you had a shade too much negative camber on the rear, but that can be a handling and roadholding advantage, even if you get a bit of inner edge wear. Since it's a year old, something may have shifted since.

Did they adjust your rear camber then Fatty?

Sounds like you either have worn rear axle bushes or a bent rear axle,has somebody jacked it up using the rear axle recently?

Since I work in Scarborough, you're not too far away....fancy helping me change them?

No jacking on the rear beam that I'm aware of. That's not to say its not bent though.....

Scanned figures from the last alignment...