My rear wheels slant inward towards the top like this: /______\ I seem to remember a long time ago a conversation I had with a buddy who drove a 3 series with the same slant in the rear wheels and he said it was normal and had something to do with camber. I have no idea what this means and searching this forum didn't help much (but I may not have been searching properly). Can anyone shed some light? This is my first true sports car.

 

some amount of "slant" or camber is normal, and helps the car with traction in the corners. If you are really worried that it is too much, which is possible, if the car is still under warranty have the dealer check it out.

 

To a small extent it is normal, and yes it's called (negative) camber, and it's just as you describe it. It optimizes the contact patch when cornering hard. When the car leans in a corner, the wheel will also lean a little, but if it is already tilted inward, the tire will actually be perfectly flat on the ground when cornering hard rather than rolling over onto the sidewall which would be the case if the wheel were perfectly perpendicular to the road when not cornering. If it has too much camber, though, it will just wear out the inner edges of your tires. Obviously it's hard to tell if it's right or not without doing an alignment. If it's new, I'd guess it's right, but you could still have a dealer check it.

 

Thanks for the info. When I swapped out the winter tires for the summer tires I noticed a little more wear on the inside of the rear tires. I bought the car and winter tires/rims used in Feb. I will have it checked. I am pretty sure I have a synchro problem between 3rd and 4th gears but I found plenty of info in the forum and that is another kettle of fish entirely.

 

Definately have the alignment checked. My 8 had way too much camber from the factory. I wore out 2 sets of tires on the inside before I finally got it aligned right. The Mazda dealer told me it was perfectly aligned. not so. I had an alignment shop do it for me and cured the tire wear problem. Good Luck....

 

Negative camber can help with traction in cornering situations but it can wear the tires out if done incorrectly. Worth getting checked out if you are worried about it.
It is much more common to see negative camber on the front wheels:

 

You might want to get alignment checked or done. I dinged a buried curb this winter and upset the camber on my right rear tire. Scratch a $200 snow tire See the difference in the tires? That's what bad camber will do.

An alignment is cheaper then 2 tires by far.

NH