I just icked up my JCW, one word, AMAZING!!!

This is my tird day owning and I have a question. I also have the JCW suspension and I notice hat my back wheels kick out a bit. This does not look normal for me and I would imagine weird tire wear. Is THIS normal???

 

sorry for all spelling mistakes I forgot to proof

 

are you referring to rear camber? does it look like this from behind: / \ ?
if so, it's normal.

 

Yep. Called "negative camber". And it ROCKS. Ideally, you can also add camber plates up front to make your front wheels look like that, too.

Negative camber improves the grip on the outside tire (which is the one loaded with the most weight) when cornering. Part of the equation that makes MINIs corner so wonderfully...

If you spend enough time corning hard, you'll get even tire wear.

 

REALLY?? that is a perfect way to describe it though / \ I was ready to run back to dealer. This will not cause weird tire wear and tear?

 

I wasn't lying. If you spend enough time cornering hard, your tires will wear pretty evenly. If you don't, the rear tires WILL wear the inside edges a bit more rapidly - greatly accelerated if you have runflats and run with air pressure too low - in that case, this happens:

 

What is the JCW Cooper S factory setting for front and rear camber?

 

Can I ask when you experience the rear wheels kick out? If it is when lifting off the throttle while cornering, also known as "lift-off-oversteer" this would most likely be attributed to the stiffer rear sway bar which all 2007+ JCW suspension kits have. We've been putting on stiffer rear-sway bars on MINIs since 2002 to prevent front-end understeer and induce lift-off-oversteer. It was in 2007 that the JCW kit started to do the same although to a lesser degree.

I'd have the dealership check the alignment: camber/toe/caster as even with the JCW suspension I don't believe you should have excessive negative camber although I could be wrong.

 

Did you read this thread?

 

If he has jcw suspension as well, and the springs has set in place chances are that he has around 1.4-2.0 in the rear. But since the rear is not as heavy as front and the front gets most of the weight (inertia) at turns they need the negative camber more than rear.

Imagine if your wheels are like this / \ and you take a 25MPH LEFT hand turn at 49MPH, all the weight of car + inertia will rest on the outside RIGHT side wheels, tuning them to this.../ ]
making the outside wheels upright thus greater contact patch. If you make hard right turn you'll go from this / \ to this [ \...

If you have camber plates for negative camber upfront, most prefer not too much negative camber in rear, though. BTW Nitto NeoGens are street tires for cars with alot of negative camber

 

... and I love my NeoGens.... Dragon proven twice now...

And getting pretty even wear with -1.8F/-1.5R camber

 

They do not kick out that much, and sometimes they look straighter than other times.... I am going to keep my eyes peeled for another JCW and see if they have same thing. I can always drive over to dealer, just give me a reason to drive, the car is truly a sports car

 

Accroding to my alignment shop's computer the JCW alignment specs are:
Front Camber: -1.0 to -0.2 degrees
Front Total Toe: 0.22 to 0.38 degrees
Rear Camber: -2.6 to -1.6 degrees
Rear Total Toe: 0.27 to 0.53 degrees

Thus the rear can have up to -2.6 degrees of negative camber / \ which is quite a bit and very noticable.

Depending on the year of your JCW, the rear camber is slightly adjustable. In 2005 Mini added adjustable rear lower control arms to adjust the rear camber. The front is not adjustable without the addition of aftermarket adjustable camber plates.