# Cruze Rear Camber measurements



## Danny5 (Dec 22, 2011)

Interdasting...

I had assumed that the Cruze rear axle would closely resemble my Sonic rear axle, with each side having less than 1/4 degree negative camber. I have briefly toyed with the idea of shimming the living **** out of the rear to get -2 degrees when I put some sticky tires on it, but I totally don't want to mess up my gas mileage.

I recently inspected my tires at 8.5k miles while painting my calipers and saw no unusual rear tire wear.


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## revjpeterson (Oct 2, 2013)

Visual estimates can be tough, since the body lines can create the illusion of camber when it isn't there, which makes me not-so-confident in my visual impression. I can see a little better if I get down on the ground behind the car and see how the rear angle compares to the front, but I haven't had ground conditions conducive to laying on my belly behind the car. If nobody has seen a measurement, maybe I'll borrow a camber gauge from someone at the racetrack once the season starts next month, and see for myself.


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## Smurfenstein (Nov 16, 2011)

revjpeterson said:


> Curious if anyone has had their Cruze on an alignment rack and seen the rear camber measurement:
> 
> I wonder, because I had a set of Firestones on my Grand Prix that were pretty much junk after being left on the rear of the vehicle for 15,000 miles (after 23,000 total miles on a 55,000 mile tire) because the inner shoulder was so badly cupped (front tires easily had another 35,000 left in them). I found out that this was because GM had designed the W-platform vehicles with pretty sever camber (3 degrees if I remember correctly) in the rear end (presumably to improve cornering stability). Ever since then, I have my tire guy install a camber bolt kit when installing my first set of tires to bring them back within a degree of vertical.
> 
> From what I can visually make out on our Cruze (at least my Diesel), it looks like GM used a similar rear camber setup. On visual inspection, it looks like there is at least 2 degrees of camber in the rear end, and maybe more, but I would like to see if anyone has seen an actual measurement to know exactly how much camber there is back there, and if it varies from trim to trim on the Cruze (for example, between Z-link and non Z-link trims).


Our cars have maybe 1 degree of rear camber.

I know so because I had an alignment done when I installed coilovers and my fronts were sitting around -1.5 and they were visually cambered more than the rears. I never looked at the rear camber on the alignment chart because with the solid rear axle it doesn't matter how low you go, it wont change. 

Part of your problem with your Grand Prix is that you never rotated your tires like you're supposed to.


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## revjpeterson (Oct 2, 2013)

Smurfenstein said:


> Our cars have maybe 1 degree of rear camber.
> 
> I know so because I had an alignment done when I installed coilovers and my fronts were sitting around -1.5 and they were visually cambered more than the rears. I never looked at the rear camber on the alignment chart because with the solid rear axle it doesn't matter how low you go, it wont change.
> 
> Part of your problem with your Grand Prix is that you never rotated your tires like you're supposed to.


Good to know. I was hoping for it being just a visual thing because of comparison with the body lines so as to avoid the trouble that I had with the W-platform cars. 

Going long on the rotation was definitely a problem, but would have been fine if not for the extreme rear camber. With logging miles so fast I didn't have time to get them rotated. Tire guy told me that they see this on just about every W-platform they service, and that once they straighten up the tires, it's never a problem. It would have been an easy fix if they had done this to the Cruze, but I'm glad to hear they may not have applied this misguided design to our cars.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

When I replaced my OEM tires (ECO MT) after 30,000+ miles there was no uneven wear on the tires.


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## CHEVYCRUZE RS (Mar 29, 2011)

maybe i can get some numbers for you guys


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