Negative Camber or 15MM Spacers

[Obvis07]

hey guys, imma be getting my coilovers pretty soon within the next week or two. and i was like was wondering which would be better if i had a negative camber or a 15 MM spacer. i know the cons and stuff of negative cambers but i like the look of it. which do u think i should go with?

[Overboostin]

whats type of wheels do you have? size and offset? I would do both.

[Obvis07]

oo i am not sure yet. but for sure i am getting 19 by 8.5 not sure of offsets yet but probably from 35-38 range? something like that

[jstahmann]

2nd - what kind, size, offset wheels do you have? I would do some negative camber as well as add the spacers.

[supamannn99]

cambers a bitch to adjust

my alignment mechanic wouldnt do it

[vwong]

^^^ I think it's time for you to look for a new mechanic. IMO, he's just too lazy. It's not difficult at all to adjust the camber in the rear. As for the front, we're out of luck because there is no adjustment from the factory anyway.

[Louis J.]

I don't know how you can decide to run 15mm spacers before you know what offset your new wheels are. I suggest you choose a wheel with proper offset and pass on the spacers. Spacers only add unsprung weight. As for camber, a good setup for AWD cars = same degree on all four corners. If you're going to lower your car, the front camber will be automatically set by the height and I would then match the rear camber to the front camber.

[jstahmann]

cambers a bitch to adjust

my alignment mechanic wouldnt do it

Whoa. My response to him would be "it's really hard for me to reach into my wallet to pay you, so I won't bother".

Run fast, run far from that mechanic. My dealer, who does my alignment, is able to get some front camber adjustment. It takes 3 guys to do it, but they can adjust both front and rear camber. Front has very limited adjustment and is a PITA, and rear has more adjustment and isn't as hard.

[Louis J.]

Whoa. My response to him would be "it's really hard for me to reach into my wallet to pay you, so I won't bother".

Run fast, run far from that mechanic. My dealer, who does my alignment, is able to get some front camber adjustment. It takes 3 guys to do it, but they can adjust both front and rear camber. Front has very limited adjustment and is a PITA, and rear has more adjustment and isn't as hard.

+1. There's nothing difficult about doing an alignment on these cars.

[supamannn99]

well i bought a lifetime alignment from firestone for $169 and that covers all alignments for as long as i own the car. i plan to raise my car for the track and lower it for the streets so i'm gonna need a lot alignments. the dude that was doing my car was asian and he said can't adjust camber and told me to do it myself.

i was like wtf.

[Louis J.]

WTF indeed. Talk to the manager and tell him to assign a tech who knows what he's doing.

Why would you want to raise your car for track?

[supamannn99]

WTF indeed. Talk to the manager and tell him to assign a tech who knows what he's doing.

Why would you want to raise your car for track?

because my car is way too low for hard cornering. i'll rub like mad

here's a pic


you can't see it from this angle but there's actually some tuckage. the alignment dude said because im lowered, he wont mess with the camber. that was his reasoning

[Louis J.]

A) the lower you go, the more camber you'll have...at least in the front, where camber is adjusted by height. You will absolutely not rub at that height, especially with the stock wheels. Leave the car as is for track. I run 8.5 wide wheels with ET32 at around the same height and -1.3 camber and don't rub with hard cornering at the track and AutoX.

B) The alignment dude is on crack. The only issue is as posted above...camber in the front is adjustable by height. You should have approximately -1.3 or -1.4 in the front...just get them to adjust the camber in the rear to match the camber in the front. Coincidentally, -1.3 camber in all four corners is the factory spec for the RS4.

[Obvis07]

well i bought a lifetime alignment from firestone for $169 and that covers all alignments for as long as i own the car. i plan to raise my car for the track and lower it for the streets so i'm gonna need a lot alignments. the dude that was doing my car was asian and he said can't adjust camber and told me to do it myself.

i was like wtf.

you do know they'll cancel your life time alignment if your car is too low. firestone is very strict ruling on their alignments. thats y they cant do cambers for u. i've tried and heard from them before. its very difficult to work with them.

[vwong]

I hate those alignment shops. They always give you excuses for not doing their jobs. My experience with them was that they'll never align the car the way I like it (such as zero toe all around, factory specs call out a bit of toe-in), and the steering wheel had never been centered. Because of those reasons, I stopped using those alignment shops about 2 years ago, and have been doing the alignment on my own.

[INTEGRATION]

^ I agree with you. I recently took my car to Firestone because I have the lifetime-alignment thing. I also noticed that they the F/R to have a little bit of toe-in (-0.1ish) ...the previous settings were even more toe-in though after my initial drop. They barely even touched the camber, I guess this would suffice until I get my car corner balanced.