Hey, need some advice here. I've taken my V6 Accord EX by Merchant's for an alignment and three of the wheels are green, but the fourth wheel (left rear) is out of camber by -1.0 degrees. The tech said they've adjusted it as far as they can go but the wheel is still out of alignment. As I recall, he said I needed a new camber bolt and quoted $150 to fix it. That seems high to me.

My question: is the most likely problem that I just need a longer bolt? Or could it be something else? If the problem is the bolt, is replacing it something I can do myself? I'm not an uber mechanic by any means, but I can change my oil, swap out the alternator and water pump, replace belts, etc.

Thanks for any tips you can provide. A tutorial page about how to do this would be great. I'm going to check my Hanes manual, but I don't expect to get much help there.

 

Nah that price is about right. The rear usually uses a arm called a easy arm, or camber arm. They are usually priced at 80 to 120 a piece and then you add in about 30 minutes of labor, which at my job is about 35 dollars. So 150 is around normal price at a repair shop. If your talking about the front I know my honda takes adjustable upper ball joints, which would probably be more in labor, and around the same price as the rear camber arms. Try looking on ebay for part you need, then get a buddy (if possible to replace part needed. Then all you have to do is get it lined back up which in the end will be alittle cheaper.

 

Thanks for the reply. Doing more reading, it looks like camber *can't* be adjusted on Accords, only toe, is this correct? Does that mean if I simply replace the camber arm in question, that will solve my problem? I'm guessing my existing arm is bent, but I haven't actually looked yet. My Hanes manual shows several arms in the rear: leading, stabilizer, control, lower, and trailing. Anyone know which one would control camber? That will give me an idea of where to look for damage.

 

What year of Accord do you have? If should be the arm that you can see when you jack the rear of your car up. It attaches directly to the body.

 

Front camber CAN be adjusted, rear camber CAN'T.

You can shop for a camber kit yourself if you'd like.

Wicked Tuning, SPC, Eibach, and Ingalls are all brands I recommend. I paid $169 for my SPC rear camber kit when it was on sale. Basically 2 adjustable arms with ball joints, took 20 minutes to install one side.

-1.0* isn't even that bad... having your toe out of spec will cause more tire wear than camber ever will.

 

I'm looking at my suspension layout, I have a multilink as well, however different car. The upper and lower will give you the camber - so there's bushings to be checked, and a ball joint - play in either will affect your camber. Also the lower arm is exposed to be hit - few things to look into.
Book calls for -30 +/- 30 minutes, so you can see a 1 degree negative and is normal.