So I installed IE fixed camber plates on an otherwise stock suspension about 9 months ago. And put about 10,000 miles on them. I read about all the information I can off this website regarding the camber plates as well as conlsulted a few mechanics and suspension experts about them. With regret I'd like to clarify ALMOST every peice of information off this website was wrong. Where do I start. I'll start with what was right.

The good-truths
The camber plates added just stupid amounts of cornering performance. They nearly eliminate all the throttle induced underteer. It's amazing. The turn in is so much crisper and quicker, the steering is faster.
I read on a post somewhere here on how the OP "could take an on ramp at 50 mph" well he was clearly older. On ramps can be taken at, sit down, over 90 mph. Speed limit was 45. The camber plates allow the car to easily double the speed limit of turns. Easily. Stock suspension.

The bad-either lies or made up
I was VERY VERY concerned with tire wear before I installed these plates. That was my primary concern. Looking through this site you'll find MANY posts suggesting -2.0 or less for daily drivers "cuz it gives good wear" and you'll also read A LOT about how camber "evens up tire wear" if you drive through the canyons. Now I live in the SoCal mountains right by the most famous "snake" and "stunt" roads. So all I drive is mountain roads. What's a highway? In defence of this website a suspension specialist from Tesla (a buddy of mine) also told me depending on the type of driving camber will even things up.

So, these are ether delusions or lies.

I'm about to by my FOURTH set of tires in 10 months. My front camber settings are -1.6

-1.6 is NOT STREET APPROVED

-1.6 has put my tires in a Thor e cig mod with drip and VAPORIZED my tires.

And I've had FIVE alignments done to try and figure this out. The toe front and back is within spec. A little high though, .22 both front and back. That's another thing nobody mentioned.

The camber plates don't allow .00 toe in the front anymore. I don't know what happens and what the plates change but the best toe that can be had after the plates is .18 to .22. Which probably contributes A LOT to the wear issues.

One alignment was even done at mini corsa. Mini corsa also installed the plates and were the only ones who actually warned me...kudos to mini corsa they did AN AMAZING JOB. Well priced.

Even wear? What even wear, lies; can't tell the uneven wear they said, LIES AND DELUSIONS. I bought BRAND NEW tires 2000 miles ago. The inside is already at 3/32, the outside? 8/32

How the hell did people on this forum not notice that? Really!?!? Can't notice the uneven wear? What!?!? Are you even looking at your tires...

I tried a set of 580 tread wear all seasons with a 45,000 mile warranty. VAPORIZED after 6,500 miles

How about a set of summer continental DW's? 2,500 miles/two months later
Cops gave me a ticket for bald tires. These tires disintegrated on me.

Would you like some pilot super sports? Yeah me too. And after 1,000 miles on them, I'd just like tires forget the super sports.

The good, the bad and the ugly-
To anybody searching this forum for camber plates, considering camber plates or about to install them. Beware. They are a better mod then even away bars performance wise. They are probably the best thing that could happen to your mini suspension performance wise other then coilovers.
However, unless you can afford to buy new tires EVERY MONTH, skip this mod. I love it but almost $2000 worth of tires later and not even a year, I can't afford to keep them. Stocks going back on. So that's $2200 ($200 for the plates) to find out something I wish I honestly could have found out from reading a real down to earth honest review like this one.

BTW ireland engineering makes some of the best stuff in the industry. And mini corsa is phenomenal. I highly recommend mini corsa and IE. They held there ends up. I was let down by not enough info on this topic. Now we know, IE fixed camber plates are amazing but front heavy FWD cars can't take front camber very well. I mean at all. and for the record the tires will cord on the inside and the outside is at 4/32 or 5/32 or HALF the tire is left. That's what I mean by vaporizer tires

 

Sorry to hear about the issue. Its a shame someone didn't let you know the consequences. I am now curious about a few things.

What type of tires are you using now that you will be going with the stock camber plate? I'm assuming Extreme Performance summer tires with 140-180 treadwear? How often do you rotate and flip your tires? I saw 580 tread wear all seasons, summer continental DW's, and pilot super sports. Any other tires or camber plate settings (I'm not sure you could because they are fixed) while you were testing out this problem?

I do not have camber plates, and have to replace tires after 8 months or 8 track days. I've been toying with the idea of adjustable camber plates.

 

Where did you get all this information??? Never seen most of it here...

I am confused, why would you need camber plates on a stock suspension? So you can burn through tires?

I hate to tell you but most Mini's can double the posted corner/exit speeds - its just the nature of the beast

 

Just for comparison here are the spec from my last alignment (which I believe is within normal specs)

LF -0.9 RF -0.9
TOE 1/16 1/16

LR -2.1 RR -2.0
TOE 1/16 3/32

Two track days and 7500 miles on Michelin PS A/S3 and they still probably have 75%
NM Springs and Alta 22mm RSB and the rest is stock sport suspension

 

Your rear is pretty far out of spec. Camber arms would definitely be recommended not to mention the weight loss advantage.

 

Boy I would never preach to somebody concerned about tire longevity to get camber plates. It absolutely will wear the front unevenly at the expense of great handling. There is barely any dialed in from the factory in order to extend tire life.

 

I always thought my stock 09S could use some camber in the front, I wear out the outside of the front tires considerably more than the rears before every tire rotation. Yes, I can take corners 2X faster but I can feel the front push explaining the wear. A little - camber would help even this out, right?

 

Considering the fantastic ability to take turns at, "double the speed limit", is it any wonder that tires are "vaporized"?

I have no interest in camber plates, but it would be interesting to know what tire the wear would be if the car was driven at the same speeds as before the change over.

 

I ran Webb camber plates from '05 through '12 on Gollum I (R53) and agree that the benefits to handling are dramatic. I did not however experience unusual tire wear, and continued to run a single set of 140 grade tires throughout each summer and each competition season, normally getting 15k miles from each set. Over that time I ran the Direzza, the Hankook, and the Toyo - and despite static camber of approximately 2.0 degrees the longevity of the tires was very good.

Kind regards,

Charlie

 

I've had the IE fixed camber plates for about 30k miles now, and have not trashed tires. I normally run about -1.5 degrees camber, and toe is about 2 mm toe in. I am able to get toe out (I ran it this way for a bit this spring, what fantastic turn in). The toe out chewed up the inside edge (cupping) pretty good, but my treadwear is OK. I've actually been trying to wear out the Bridgestone all season's that my car came with, but I'm on my 3rd summer on them (I run snows for about 4 months a year) and they are finally almost to the wear bars.

Sorry to disagree. I actually have pretty even wear across the tire with my settings. I run about 1 degree camber in the rear and 1.5 mm total toe in.

Good luck,
Mike

 

Have to agree with Charlie on both accounts of improved handling and reasonably good tire wear. I have used the IE plates on both of my Cooper Ss and I am now on my 5th summer on the same set of tires (Bridgestone G019 all season). These have probably seen about 25k miles. The front camber on my previous MINI was -1.6 deg and on my current it is -1.5 deg. I am not particularly easy on the tires but I don't generally double the corner speed. However, if anything, that should even out the wear but will make the tires wear faster, which you may be experiencing. I am currently noticing a bit of wear on the inside of the tires, but not a lot. I do track the car and run a few autocross events, but these are on other tires. But even the tires I use for those events have probably lasted longer than yours. My winter tires (2nd winter last winter) show no uneven wear. OK, I know this isn't a lot of help for you to figure out why you are wearing out tires but it seems a few us are finding the camber plates to be acceptable and not quite as dire as you have experienced.

Something that you said in the first post caught my attention...that is, you said that the camber plates won't allow you to get to a 0.0 toe in. While the camber plates will increase the toe in, there should be plenty of adjustment in the tie rods. When I changed my plates I added 1-1/2 turns on each tie rod to bring the toe in back to what I thought was the stock setting. When I had the alignment done I was told that I had actual toe-out and a lot of it. My point is, I would have expected that you would have had more than 1 thread of adjustment left in your tie rods to correct for the toe-in the camber plates add. Excessive toe out along with the camber plates will wear tires very fast. From what you have said, I would suspect that your alignment is off and you have excessive toe-out. Even though you have had it done 5 times, I would get it checked by someone else. This wouldn't be the first time the calibration of someone's alignment machine was off.

 

+1 on excessive toe out will wear out front tires prematurely. 1.6 degrees camber is not a radical amount of camber to use for a DD.

 

Many interesting points were made, but most facts stated or "ASSumed" to be true were either incorrect or misleading.
I will correct a few for the benefit of OP and anyone who reads this in the archives.

Stock OEM R56 suspension comes with about -0.7 degrees of negative camber upfront. Works well for an average driver. If you increase the negative camber much, you will *drum roll* increase the inside tire wear. Simple geometry.

Option 1: If you remove the little rataining pin and slide the OEM camber plate toward the center of the car, you will increase front negative camber (for free!) to about -0.9-1.1 degrees. I had that on my daily-driver / autoX toy for 2 years, and had absolutely even front tire wear.

Option 2: If you replace OEM camber plates with IE fixed plates, you will pickup about -1.25 degresss. I had that setup for half a year, and had absolutely even front tire wear.

Option 3: If you lower the car or install adjustable camber plates, you will pickup more negative camber. Linearly dependent on how much you lower the car. You will also pickup more toe-in, which will destroy the outsides of your tires.

Which is why you need to take your car to a competent alignment shop after you change the suspension geometry by a meaningful amount (e.g.: for Options 2 & 3).

First of all, OEM front toe spec is 1/16 toe in, not .22. That's just wrong.
Secondly, you absolutely CAN adjust the front toe as much as you want, as the front tie rods have adjustment threads up the wazooo. You can always adjust the front toe to anything you like, rear is harder. The above statement is just wrong.

The OP needs to find a new alignment shop that actually knows what they are doing!


HTH,
a

 

Did something change with wheel alignments for the R56 after the 2007 model year?

I did some digging and I found the dealer's printout of the alignment that was done on my '07 MINI Cooper S. The front camber is listed as "Left sided target -0deg 23' " and the "Right side target is -0deg 20' ". 20' would be 1/3rd deg or 0.33 deg. The "Max difference" is listed as +/- 25' or 0.42 deg. I guess this would mean at the far end you could be at ~ -0.75 deg; but you could also be at a +0.09 camber and still be "acceptable". So at least for 2007, the Coopers came, nominally, with -0.33 to -0.38 deg camber. Not very much.

If you pull the "pin", it will add about -0.3 deg to what you have. Nominally this would net -0.6 of camber and could be as high as -1.0 deg with the tolerance. But note that if you are at the other side of the tolerance band, you could be less than -0.3 deg camber with the pin pulled.

The IE camber plates will increase the camber by -1.2 deg (per their web page). With the pin pulled this will result in a total camber of -1.5 deg (which is what both of my Cooper Ss had with these plates).

The toe-in is listed as 0deg 14' (total for both wheels). On a 12.2" radius tire that would be 0.050" total toe-in which would be just under the 1/16" you quote. As you said, 0.22" is way too much.

 

Mark me down as another one with camber plates and no tire wear issues. I'm probably on the extreme side since I run about -3.2 degrees of camber both on the street and at auto-x. I've gone through probably 6 sets of auto-x tires in the past few years. Never had an issue with uneven wear. I've got a set of Potenza Grids that are used for driving to/from events and occasionally around town. Probably have 25k miles on them at -3.2 degrees of camber and a only have a very slight amount of uneven wear. Probably 1/16" tread depth difference from outside to inside.

Whoever told you they can't dial the toe out to zero isn't trying or there is something broken on your car. Even with -3.2 I have no problems getting zero toe in the front.

I'd bet money on the fact that the OP is gassing it hard out of corners and spinning the inside tire which is partially unweighted. This is a really good way to eat up the inside edge of tires.

OP sorry you're having so many issues but you are not the norm here.

 

yes. OP's toe is killing him. you can't run camber AND toe and have good tire wear, period. should be running 0 toe. otherwise, wear should greatly be improved. i have nasty camber wear on my tires from lack of camber

 

The pin pull trick only works on stock camber plates, not aftermarket.
So IE camber plates will give you -1.2 deg of camber, +/- 0.3 degrees or thereabouts due to manufacturing tolerances and strut tower mushrooming.

Agreed.

A large amount of toe-in (or toe-out) is the sure way to accelerate the wear of the outside (or inside) tire shoulder.

A large amount of negative camber will wear out the inside tire shoulder if driving mostly in straight line, but will offset excessive outside shoulder wear if you are turning a lot at the limit of adhesion (e.g.: autoX, track).

There is NO such thing as a 100% happy street/track compromise.
You either have a dedicated track car, or live with excessively harsh suspension and weird tire wear on the street to go faster on track/autoX.

a