The Importance of Toe-in or Toe-out

[mollow]

I have an 03 Focus SVT that I'm tired of buying tires for.
My problem, and I can't imagine I'm the only one with this problem, is excessive inside tire wear front & rear.
How can I fix this when the camber is fixed front & rear.
Is there something after market available.
After about 20K miles on new tires, I start getting alot of tire noise from the insides wearing.

[illinipo]

what are the toe specs currently?

[mollow]

That's a good question. I guess I'll have to start out with alignment reading.

[Phokus]

For my 09, on my alignment sheet it shows the toe specs are

Front -0.10 - 0.10
Rear 0.08 - 0.28

numbers are in degrees.

[illinipo]

FINALLY ford got a clue.

all Focuses should be at 0.08-0.12 in... (edit, degrees)

[Geezer]

Originally Posted by illinipo

FINALLY ford got a clue.

all Focuses should be at 0.08-0.12 in...

While Ford is slowly acknowledging that their spec range is pretty broad, I think it is still so and prefer something even less.... like 0.04" (SVT or lowered) or 0.06" of rear toe-in for non-lowered cars......especially 00 to 05 year cars. But to answer the original question it could be a problem of both excessive toe and camber. And yes, knowing what the current settings helps in making a recommendation.

[illinipo]

Phokus was that in degrees or inches? .08 degrees is about the same as .02 inches. I would recommend anywhere from .08-.12 degrees.

[Geezer]

Degrees or inches is definitely important. One other thing, conversion of degrees to inches is not as straight forward as might be implied above. You need to know where the toe angle is measured (the tire tread or the rim) and the overall diameter of the tire or rim. (formulas courtesy of the enginerds at miata.net)

Example: lets say the alignment results in .30 degrees of toe. And for sake of argument the tire is 24 inches in diameter on a 14 inch wheel:

For a toe angle measured at the tire tread:

.30x24/55(a constant)= .13"

if measured at the wheel:

.30x14/55= 0.08"

(results rounded)

[2003focusowner]

About two years ago I went thru the tire thing on my 03 Sedan. After consulting with Geezer and Illinopo on how to correct it I bought two adjustable -1.5 tom+5 degree SPC rear control arms at $219.00 and had them installed for $50.00. We put the toe in the rear to as low as possible within specs which was about .15 degrees and kept the camber at -1.1.

My car stopped eating tires and handles great.

Before it was a death ride during the winter months or when the highway was wet.........the thing would hydroplane at 45 mph.

Thanks to Geezer and Illinopo........you stopped the bleeding for me.......

Steve

[Phokus]

Edited my post to clarify.

Yes it's Degrees