We recommend setting the rear alignment of your Tesla from -0.9° to -1.1° for camber and 0.10° to 0.20° for toe at the ride height you drive in most often. This is the optimal setting for even and improved tire wear and safety while at the same time maintaining Tesla’s recommended specifications. Tesla’s alignment spec is so broad that you can easily be “within spec” and still only get 4,000 miles out of a set of tires. This is not acceptable. It is unlikely to get your alignment adjusted to the above recommended settings with the SX-1 adjustable camber arms by themselves. However every Tesla is slightly different so it’s not possible to say for certain. Installing the SX-1 adjustable camber arms by themselves you may come close enough to your liking and certainly reduce inner rear tire wear. However from our experience though you’ll be left with too much positive toe which will wear out your tires faster than if your toe was in our recommended settings mentioned above since your tires would now not be as parallel to the road. For this reason we recommend installing our TSX-1 adjustable toe arms to give you the flexibility to dial in the exact settings with no compromise. If you use lowering links, drive in the low or very low positions or if your Tesla is older or currently has extreme inner tire wear then you will definitely need both the SX-1 and TSX-1 control arms. If you drive a Model X then we recommend installing our Alignment Kit 1 to address acceleration shudder and inner tire wear. That kit comes with both the SX-1 and TSX-1 adjustable arms as well as our RSX-1 links to give you an ideal alignment and reduce the wear on your front half-shafts which is the cause of the acceleration shudder/vibration.
For a little more insight… Replacing your factory non-adjustable Tesla camber arms with N2itive SX-1 adjustable camber arms will allow you to reduce the excessive negative camber of your rear wheels which is the common cause of inner tire wear on the Tesla Model S and X. Especially if you’ve already had your car aligned but the inner tire wear persists.
However as you reduce the negative camber the geometry of the wheel changes which causes the wheels to begin to toe in.
With the Tesla S or X you can adjust the toe, but only slightly. You have about 3.5mm of adjustment from the neutral position to try to push the toe back out slightly to the 0.10° – 0.20° setting. Generally this will not be enough to dial in the ideal setting which is why we recommend the combination of the SX-1 and TSX-1 control arms or the acceleration shudder and inner tire wear kit which comes with both. If you have any questions please reach out to us.
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