Cambertire

[Need my Focusin]

An interesting company that asks a good question; are tires the wrong shape.http://www.cambertire.com/company/Default.aspx

[TRDTurko]

They should put out some street compounds so e can actually get some camber out of our stock strut cars!

[Hard Dog]

Is the idea to match the tire camber with the suspension camber, making the tread surface level? Interesting concept, but I still see the outside shoulders taking most of the abuse for autocross, and these tires can't be flipped. If the "camber" is achieved by making the tread progressively thicker, then maybe it has merit, but balancing would be a challenge.

[Jim Eh.]

They should put out some street compounds so e can actually get some camber out of our stock strut cars!

Make your own ... toe your front end out 3/4" and go for a ride around the perimeter. Volia, instant camber tires.Disclaimer: The writer is not responsible for the horrendous crash about to take place during this procedure ... but send me the pictures. Video would be better!

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Didn't Nitto already do this? I recall they used to have tires where the outer bit of the tire was thicker/taller than the inside, so the whole tire had contact at rest on neg-camber cars.

[Corey]

I believe the old (mid-late 90's?) Goodyear R1 DOT-race tires had some asymmetrical belts/sidewalls/something that reduced outside wear from not having enough negative camber. The idea hasn't been ripped off by anyone, so I bet there were other negative effects...

[Jeff]

Seems like a flawed idea, from a performance standpoint. What it's doing is eliminating the negative camber that we use to generate a flatter contact patch in corners (where you need it most) and replacing it with a flat contact patch in a straight line, which is what we could have if we just ran 0 camber in our suspension. So now you can run tilted wheels without any of the benefits! Yay! I think he's kinda missing the point.It's like a Subaru owner going, "hey, you know how our hood scoops cause so much drag? Well I found a way to avoid drag while still having a hood scoop! Just cover it with this clear plastic panel and VOILA! Drag is gone." (And so is the benefit of the hood scoop). Heck, I might just start doing that; those guys will buy anything.I think Brian has the right idea - if you mounted them the other way, you'd gain some effective camber on camber-limited cars....But I'm not a tire engineer, so I could be completely wrong.

[insertnamehere]

I think if this was the right idea, it would be used in many applications by now.

[Hard Dog]

If this concept had real benefit, I think F1 would have been all over it years ago.

[Talon_Claudio]

I think the idea would be to run the larger diameter on the inside, correcting for low negative camber. F1 would never need this since they can adjust the car to what they actually need.The only market would be stock autoslalom cars with poor camber adjustment. Probably not worth it, and there may even be some dot rules against that type of construction.

[TRDTurko]

The only market would be stock autoslalom cars with poor camber adjustment. Probably not worth it' date=' and there may even be some dot rules against that type of construction.[/quote']The website says they are dot approved.

[Beau]

I am very skeptical of this technology. Here's an excerpt from their website:

"Another benefit of Cambertire technology is the ability to prevent vehicle rollover, a very important design characteristic for SUVs and mini vans."

If the tires increase lateral grip, then rollover is more likely, not less likely. Rollovers are caused by high cg and high lateral forces. Either they are making a tire with less lateral grip or they don't know what they are talking about.

[Corey]

Or bad marketing. I haven't recognized some of my feature lists after they were interpreted by a marketing department... "No, this won't cure male pattern baldness!"