Camber adjustment fixed the cause of sudden and obvious wear on the inside edge of one of my fronts.  Thousands of happy miles negated by a Gaspe trip during which we had serious wear on the inside edge. I made a tool and was able to do the adjustment that seems now to be holding.   However, it could have been more complicated and serious than that, and yours might be a few things combined. Incidentally, one of our now-ex-cars was creamed in the left side and we had it repaired by one of the primo shops in town.  He did a gorgeous job on the body but farmed out the alignment, which later proved to be off.  I could see the car crabbing left as my wife drove it away and I made a set of rough gauge blocks that demonstrated it but I simply could NOT get the alignment guy to admit the rear toe-in might be off on that particular car, so I tweaked it myself and it was acceptable thereafter.   Go figure.

Stephen

--- On Mon, 8/27/12, Loren Busch <starwagen@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

From: Loren Busch <starwagen@GMAIL.COM> Subject: Re: Tire wear pattern -- it puzzles the expert To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Date: Monday, August 27, 2012, 1:00 PM

RE: Severe Outer Edge Tire Wear on One Front Wheel

Far from an expert on this subject but I'm going to take a SWAG at this one, I had to deal with some similar problems (not as severe) just a year ago.  The first and most obvious possibility is camber way off.  The second, more subtle, is caster way off causing tire to dig in on left turns.  And third, hardware problems in the suspension that make everything look right on the alignment rack but don't work right on the road.