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"excessive" camber = excessive wear on wheel bearing?
Some tires will make a humming noise, much like bearings, when they start wearing down..especially when it's "unusual" wear from things like camber or toe. I know the shoulders on my kumho ecstas had a crazy wear pattern and they made some loud noise when they were nearing the end.
With that said, excessive camber will put uneven load on the bearings and can cause premature failure.
Best way to find out is toss on some spare wheels/tires if you have any laying around or you have friends that will let you borrow some. If the noise goes away with the wheel swap, you'll know it's the tires and not your bearings.
I was running lots of camber on the front of my apssat until I got adjustable CA's and my tires hummed like crazy (had 2.2 deg of neg. camber) and it was worse when I hit the brakes. Once I corrected the camber the noise went away, it was all from the tires.
it all comes down to the geometry and design and what the load bearing specs of the bearings are. I noticed that on the vws that this was a huge problem on them and it seems to stem either from camber, spacers, wheels sizes or something else. maybe they use crappier bearings now or maybe this happens on non-modified cars too but from what i saw, it was like the snapped axles from lowered dubs and bearings were at the top of the list for suspension/driveline problems. OVERALL, IT COMES DOWN TO PRECISION PARTS MADE TO WORK A CERTAIN WAY. seems like they stopped using as much material lowering the load bearing weight of the bearings.
think of it this way: it's all about maximum profits and getting the best gas mileage (for the selling point on that second one). they try to do it for least cost possibly and best fuel efficiency which in return leads to lightweight materials/design leading to faster wear when you modify and stray from the specs the manufacturers needed for reliability and to pass safety inspections. Also, weaker parts means oem parts will fly off the shelves due to cars breaking down more and a majority of people like going to dealerships LOL. overdoing parts to ensure quality is something of the past due to precision machining and it seems it's easier nowadays to break shit.
do you concur? no? ever drive old american metal? or an old import? american cars got cheaper while foreign cars got better body-wise but mechanically they are all cheapening up.
who is to blame? engineers and mathletes kinda but not really. it's not their fault, but it is their job to cut costs. a mm shaved off every piece of the car while complying to safety specs would safe a buttload of money yet do nothing to the overall value of the car. if we got more enthusiasts in those kind of jobs to keep in mind of the performance & car show minded people, we might be able to save some money in the long run LOL. personally, i'd rather blame the manufacturers for being a bunch of d-bags cause seriously, why else does modifying anything on the outside of a car void the warranty? THEY ARE BECOMING MORE OF TIGHTWADS THAN USUAL NOW THAT THEY FIGURED OUT HOW TO MAKE PARTS BREAK SOON AFTER THE WARRANTY EXPIRES. It all comes down to the overall engineering and those guys basically have a gun to the back of their head to do so with a line of guys ready to take their jobs.
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