STOP Inner Tire Wear & Premature CV Joint Wear/Acceleration Shudder – N2itive’s Adjustable Control Arms & Lowering Links for Tesla Model S or X!

Designed By N2itive
Los Angeles, California

N2itive.me – Introduces The Essential Tesla Mod!

I love my Model S but if you drive an S or X like me, you may have noticed the inner rear tires wearing out way too quickly.  Even after having the vehicle aligned, the problem most often remains.  With Teslas, rear inner tire wear is typically due to a combination of negative toe (where the wheels toe outward in a slight “V” shape) and excessive negative rear camber (inward tilt from the top of the wheel).  Only toe is adjustable on the Tesla S and X and not very much at that.  The rear wheel camber is not adjustable from the factory which is why having an alignment performed usually doesn’t help.  While some negative camber is essential for good traction during cornering, having too much can wear out the inner tire’s edge.  This creates a critical situation where many of us have experienced the tire quickly lose air pressure or completely blow out without warning, destroying a very expensive tire and wheel and possibly causing an accident.

It can be a bit of an illusion.  A quick look or feel of your rear tire tread and everything seems fine.  It’s not until you lie on the ground and look way back at the very inside edge that you see how bad your tire’s condition is.  Many Tesla S and X owners like myself are getting only 5-10 thousand miles out of the rear tires.  This means spending anywhere from $400 – $1,200 for a pair of new tires every few months.  Not to mention spending time at the tire shop way too often.

Safety In Strength

The original rear camber arms supplied with the Tesla S/X were not the most robust design.  Some owners have had issues where the camber arms will bend or break going over potholes or bumps in the road.  N2itive’s camber and toe arms are significantly stronger as you can see in this FEA analysis.  The original camber arms suffer about 3x more deflection under less stress compared to N2itive’s adjustable SX-1 camber arm.  Even under far greater weight and stress N2itive’s control arms won’t fail.

How It Works

As you can see in the below image of the Tesla S/X rear suspension, the camber arm is fixed or non-adjustable.  Whatever degree of negative camber you have is what you’re stuck with and by no means are all Teslas the same!  Tesla recommends having a rear negative camber of -1.75° +/-1.00° for air suspension.  So that equals a maximum suggested negative camber of -2.75° to as little as -0.75° to be within their specs.  For coil suspension Tesla recommends a rear negative camber of -1.25° +/-1.00° which equals a maximum suggested negative camber of -2.25° to -0.25°.   It’s important to understand that just because you’re within Tesla’s alignment range does not mean you won’t suffer from inner tire wear!

OEM Tesla S/X Rear Suspension

Keeping your rear negative camber at -1.00° is about optimal for even tire wear while maintaining good control in cornering.  If you have more negative camber than that is where you start to notice inner tire wear.  Also as the rubber annular bushings in the camber arms begin to sag and break down with age you’ll develop more negative camber.  This is why as Tesla’s get older the inner tire wear issue becomes worse.

N2itive’s SX-1 Adjustable Rear Camber Arms

So it sounds easy enough then, just replace the factory camber arms with a pair of N2itive’s adjustable SX-1 Camber arms, have the vehicle aligned with the rear camber set to -1.00° and the problem is solved.  For many Tesla owners this will be the case and only a pair of SX-1 camber arms will be necessary.  There is one other thing to consider however and that is toe.  As you adjust the camber, the geometry of the suspension begins to change.  Adding more camber will cause the wheel to “toe in”.  This can generally be compensated for by turning the toe arm’s eccentric bolt to push the toe arm further out.  The problem is that you only have 3.5mm from the bushings neutral position to push the toe arm out.  That’s about the thickness of a USB cable.  Not much adjustment potential at all and perhaps not enough to get the “toe” into the correct specs while your rear camber is now in an optimal position.  So to deal with this we created adjustable toe arms as well.

N2itive’s TSX-1 Adjustable Rear Toe Arms

N2itive’s new TSX-1 adjustable toe arms are far more robust than the factory arms and they come with a pair of spherical and annular bushings for the best alignment and driveability.  The original OEM arms came with only annular bushings.  The N2itive TSX-1 gives you up to 15mm of positive toe in and 15mm of negative toe out to dial in the perfect alignment regardless of your situation.  Picking up a set of both N2itive’s SX-1 Camber Arms and TSX-1 Toe Arms will allow you to dial in perfect rear wheel alignment which is currently not possible with Teslas.  If there is any confusion or you have questions then please check our FAQ page or reach out to us.  We’ll help you figure out the best solution.