Key Takeaways

  • Camber, or the tilt of a car's wheels, can be reasonable for sports cars and even regular commuter cars to improve grip, but manufacturers usually minimize camber for efficiency and tire life.
  • Negative camber, where the tops of the tires angle inwards, is common in performance cars to improve grip during cornering, but excessive negative camber can lead to reduced braking and acceleration and increased tire wear.
  • Stanced cars, with exaggerated negative camber, are more for aesthetic purposes than performance benefits and can be impractical for daily driving, causing discomfort at high speeds and risk of damage to the underbody.

There's probably little chance you haven't seen a car with tilted wheels on the road. Maybe you've even seen a stanced car struggling to get onto a driveway without scraping its front bumper off. And maybe you've thought, why would anyone in their right mind do that? Well, the surprise is they can be in certain situations. like the creation of drift culture.

This tilted wheels phenomenon is known as camber, and it can be reasonable for most sports cars. Even a regular commuter car could benefit from the added grip of the correct camber angle. But manufacturers usually zero out the camber or have it at minuscule degrees to not affect efficiency or tire life.

On the other hand, most performance cars come from the factory with negative camber dialed in to improve the tires' ability to grip the road, even if that may not always be the case. Some even go the extra mile with complex suspension setups to ensure the camber angle doesn't change when cornering hard.

But camber on cars could also be flat-out ridiculous, depending on the degree of tilt or how stanced the car is. But is there any benefit to it at all? The answer is yes if done right.

Updated August 2023: We've updated this article with more information on tilted wheels and stanced cars. As with all car mods, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. We tell you how there are two sides to stanced cars, and if done right, it can help improve the driving dynamics of a car.

Related: 17 Stanced Cars That Look Incredible (And 8 That Belong In A Junkyard)

What Is Tilting Wheels On A Car Called?

Car camber, or more technically, camber angle, refers to the angle of your car's tires relative to its vertical axis when viewed from the rear or the front. If you think about it, this tilt can occur in two directions, bringing us to the types of cambered wheels: positive and negative.

If the top of your tire is tilted away from your car, that's positive camber. However, if the tops of your car's tires are angled inwards and nearer to the wheel wells, that's negative camber (those are the weird ones on the road).

Related: Watch The Test That Proves Whether A JDM Drift Car Can Corner Like A Sports Car

Is Positive Camber Good On A Car?

Baja Porsche 911 Prototype 2
via Collecting Cars

Wheels are typically adjusted to have a positive camber for off-road uses, mainly because it reduces steering effort and provides greater stability for movement in a straight line. This makes it great for agricultural vehicles.

Also, because the tires pull to each side, positive camber gives vehicles more inclination to track straight. Hence, their application in some dump and cement trucks to compensate for their heavy loads. Positive camber also finds uses in recreational vehicles for navigating rocky, sandy, or uneven terrain, preventing them from straying to either side. But it's not all rosy.

While great for straight-line driving and light steering, positive camber causes poor handling. When cornering, the weight of a car shifts to the outer portions of the tires, and positive camber makes these outer areas have less contact with the road. The wheels can also break loose with positive camber, and there's an increased risk of a tire puncture.

Related: Single Cab Form Of The Chevrolet Silverado ZR2 Gives The Truck A Muscular Stance

Why Do Drift Cars Have Negative Camber?

If the upper part of your tire is angled inwards, it's called negative camber. Increase the angle significantly, and you have a stanced car. Also, because of the considerable tilt, stanced cars are usually slammed. In other words, their bodies are really close to the ground (good luck getting over a road bump with that one).

When going straight, negative camber makes your tires slanted. However, cornering is when it really shines. The body roll that occurs while turning causes the tires to become fully perpendicular and increases the contact area with the road surface. This improves your car's grip, traction, and, consequently, handling and allows you to corner at higher speeds. This makes it ideal for drift cars.

R32 Nissan Skyline GT-T Good Wood Drifting Race Car
Getty Images

Another effect of the increased contact on the road is the even spreading of load, which helps to reduce tire wear. This is assuming you only have a very slight negative camber. While negative camber certainly has benefits (you probably saw this coming), it poses a few problems. Excessively negatively cambered wheels mean less braking on the turn for you, but the reduced contact with the road worsens braking and acceleration when going straight. And if you predominantly drive straight (like all of us), you can expect your tires to wear considerably.

Negative camber also reduces stability during straight driving, especially over bumps and road debris. And like positive camber, it strains your driveshaft – wheel bearings, CV joints, and bushings – and can cause your wheels to break loose. It also increases your risk of a tire puncture.

Related: 10 Essential Drift Upgrades For Beginners

Should You Go Cambered Wheels Style?

Front 3/4 shot, modified Toyota GR86
Claire and Ayesh

You probably already know by now that negative camber is the logical option unless you use a tractor as your daily driver. But did you know that most cars are manufactured with a slight tilt? Look closely at your tires, and you might just be surprised.

However, even if your car isn't cambered from the factory, you can change that. Assuming you go the smart route of tweaking your wheels only slightly, stancing can turn out surprisingly well. You have to bear in mind, though, that you'll still suffer considerably more tire wear. And unless you intend to do a lot of cornering, the only true winners here are the tire manufacturers.

Stanced Cars On Public Roads: Pros And Cons

Stanced Honda Civic on the road front third quarter view
Yomar Lopez Via Flickr

A certain degree of negative camber is very helpful on cars. This ranges from 4 to 7 degrees. Anything above that causes more harm than good. Excessive negative camber does no good in terms of driving dynamics or cornering. But then, why is there a wave of stanced cars at every car meet? The answer is aesthetics. The insane negative camber angle you see on these "show cars" is purely for show. Here are all the pros and cons of stanced cars.

Pro - A Guaranteed Head-Turner

Stanced cars, besides having excessive negative camber angles, also flaunt lowering springs and many custom body mods. All of these come together to be a head-turner, both on the freeway and at the SEMA show.

Pro - Steep Improvement In Cornering Handling And Stability

A steep improvement in handling and stability but only in the corners. The reason why drift cars have a certain degree of negative camber is to improve their stability. This, along with the lowered suspension, helps keep the center of gravity of drift cars between the wheels. The result is a car that goes sideways without flipping over or getting imbalanced.

Pro - Increased Tire Traction

Increasing the negative camber helps extract more grip from a particular set of tires. This helps improve high-speed cornering.

Con - Highly Impractical For Daily Driving

Stanced cars with a certain degree of negative camber are cool to look at. But the outrageous stance we see on show cars are just there for....show. These cars are painfully uncomfortable at high speeds and nearly impossible to navigate on bad patches of road or, even worse, over speed-humps. Also, high-speed stability is greatly reduced with excessive negative camber.

Con - Risk Of Damaging The Underbody

As excessively stanced cars are lowered to extreme levels, scraping the underside of these cars with even the slightest undulations on the road may damage various components, including the exhaust system and oil sump.

Con - Uneven Tire Wear

The irregular contact patch that tires have with the road due to extreme negative camber causes the inside of the tires to wear down much faster than the outer edge.