Hi,


I have only done 5 thousand happy miles in my 2011 Panda 1.2 - but now the inside of the front tyres are bald. The tyres where new when I got it (dealer put new ones on at my request).


Toe-in is about zero (as per spec). But the camber is way off - minus 2.7 degrees on one side and minus 2.2 degrees on the passenger side, so this looks like the reason for the tyre wear.


Does anyone have any idea how the camber could be out by much out given that it is not adjustable. The spec is half to one-and-a-half degrees (-1 degree +- 30 minutes).


Some things I can rule out:


* The shock top mounts look to be the right way round (stand by for photo).
* Driving style/road conditions - I commute 100 miles a day and my previous car, a 2002 Punto, wore tyres evenly over years of the same driving.


The tyres are Hifly HF201, which seem to be a mid-price rather than cheap tyre. Googling the tyres doesn't show catastrophic tyre wear.


The front of the car does look low (stand by for photo) - maybe the front springs are wrong - that would cause negative camber. But how ???


I have some "camber bolts" to fit tomorrow, they promise 1 or 1.5 degree of adjustment, but I am worried that, if I can get it back to spec by using them, that I am curing the symptoms of some deeper problem.


Any ideas, random thought welcome.

When a car is new and all the steering settings are correct. As the springs weaken or people lower them the suspension arns instead of being down can become level makibg the track a fraction widerabd having the efect of altering track and camber to a small extent. May not be your problem but worth remembering.
Ken

Just uploading photos. Show 1) Ride height of car, 2) Tyre wear pattern, 3) Position of top shock mounts as viewed from the bonnet

KERABO said:

When a car is new and all the steering settings are correct. As the springs weaken or people lower them the suspension arns instead of being down can become level makibg the track a fraction widerabd having the efect of altering track and camber to a small extent. May not be your problem but worth remembering.
Ken

Click to expand...

Thanks, Ken. The front does look low - but I don't know why ?? It's almost like the previous owner replaced the springs or it was made with the wrong springs. I just uploaded pics so you can see - it looks "nose-down" to me.

Presumably 5k miles is not the total, just your mileage since you bought the car.
And, guessing from your comments, the previous history is unknown.
If this is so, the previous owner could have played with spring settings, or the vehicle may have had a shunt? Or is there wear in the joints?
If you cannot determine any of this, it looks like a front suspension overhaul is on the cards.
Adding an adjustment which wasn't there originally would really be masking the problem rather than sorting it.

Yellow Mark on front springs - is that correct ?

Spot-on, SweetSixteen, 5k since I got it and history unknown.


No wear in any of the joints/bushes.


There aren't any spring settings on the Panda, except for the top mount, which can be reversed to change the geometry. If they are reversed, I have heard that gives a lot of extra camber. But mine look to be the right way round (see photos earlier).


It is like both springs have been replaced with shorter, or weaker, ones.


That got me thinking, I remember that Fiat put a mark of coloured paint on their springs to show what car they are for.


I just wiped the road grime off the front springs and, sure enough, they have a yellow mark on them. Does anyone know if this is the correct colour for a 2011 1.2 8v front suspension spring ?

The MJs tend to wear the front tyres in the same way as yours. This is down to the extra weight of the engine, but the petrols normally fare better.
How did you measure the camber ? I've got a MJ and have a wheel alignment tool so I can check the toe in, but I have tried a few methods to measure the camber and its very difficult to do it reliably/accurately
I suppose you have checked the toe-in, what was the reading ? Some garages don't calibrate or use their equipment too well
Cheers Richard

I should have gone to spec-savers, it's a BLUE mark

Ooops - there is a very obvious yellow circle on the spring but my Google research shows that they all seem to have that.

There is a BLUE paint mark on it, which I think is the spring application code. See photo. Other Fiat Panda springs on Google have red or green marks, I don't see any blue ones.

AND it only has three windings. Panda front springs seem to have four or five windings when I Google pictures of them.

richardllew said:

The MJs tend to wear the front tyres in the same way as yours. This is down to the extra weight of the engine, but the petrols normally fare better.
How did you measure the camber ? I've got a MJ and have a wheel alignment tool so I can check the toe in, but I have tried a few methods to measure the camber and its very difficult to do it reliably/accurately
I suppose you have checked the toe-in, what was the reading ? Some garages don't calibrate or use their equipment too well
Cheers Richard

Click to expand...

Hi, Richard. I used a spirit level to measure the camber. I rested it vertically on the wheel, it bears on points 210 mm apart (the spirit level has to be quite short because the tyres are proud of the rims). I have to back off the spirit level 10mm from the rim on one side (implying a camber of 2.7 degrees) to make it vertical, 8mm on the other (camber=2.2 degrees). I measured the amount to back-off by inserting a plastic wedge progressively until the spirit level read vertical and then measured the width of the wedge at that point. Not accurate, I know, but it should only need to be backed-off 3.6mm if it is in spec so this is good enough to indicate that the camber is well out of spec.


Toe-in is easy because it should be zero on this Panda (there is a slight toe-in specified for other models) so a long straight edge run from the front wheels to the rear wheels shows around a centimetre total splay, ie there is a slight toe-in but not enough to eat tyres.


Obviously, I reversed the spirit level and my "straight edge" and re-measured to check for bias, they panned out as level and straight so no need to correct the measurements for that.

don't tyre places not do free 4 wheel alignment checks in Ireland?

JohnPenfold said:

Ooops - there is a very obvious yellow circle on the spring but my Google research shows that they all seem to have that.

There is a BLUE paint mark on it, which I think is the spring application code. See photo. Other Fiat Panda springs on Google have red or green marks, I don't see any blue ones.

AND it only has three windings. Panda front springs seem to have four or five windings when I Google pictures of them.

Click to expand...

Ebay have a couple which look like what you've described for Fiat Panda 1.2 auto.

JohnPenfold said:

Toe-in is easy because it should be zero on this Panda (there is a slight toe-in specified for other models) so a long straight edge run from the front wheels to the rear wheels shows around a centimetre total splay, ie there is a slight toe-in but not enough to eat tyres.

Click to expand...

Have to admire your ingeniousness! I would not have thought of using your method for checking camber! But checking toe in/out the way you have done it is suspect. The track widths are different front and rear, so unless you have carefully measured and made allowance for this, your conclusions as to tracking accuracy could be way out.
If 'hands-off' steering shows no bias either way (on a road with no camber) this gives a reasonable indication that tracking is good, but even this is not accurate. Track rod lengths need to be identical side to side, and toe in/out needs to be set with this as a starting point before absolute accuracy can be confirmed. Might be worth checking tracking again - but the negative camber will need to be sorted in any case.