Hi all - I have an 82 Sportswagon (Australia) that is wearing out the insides of both rear tyres - and it handles like a boat on dirt but is fine on bitumen - I have been under the car and I cant see anything unusual - the car has only done 120,000 kms - I have the Subaru workshop manual but it does not mention this problem - any ideas ?

Bushings

Struts

There’s not much alignment in those rear suspensions but someone should comment specifically since that would be the first question.

 

Have you driven the car 100k and then last month this rates happening or what?

 

Is it rusty? the tops of the rear tires will lean in towards the car if the rear crossmember is starting to fail due to rust. This is the one thing that would most easily affect both sides simultaneously. It would be odd for two struts or wheel bearings to fail in the same way and at the exact same time.

The rear trailing arm setup on an ea81 is pretty much the same an an ea82, right? Because for an ea82, there actually is quite a bit of toe adjustment you can do. Wearing on the insides is either negative camber or toe out. 

 

Oh yeah definitely alignment first, I was unsure how substantial the alignment was back there.

 

Odd for both to do the same thing though.

If your car has a torsion bar spring in the rear and it's tired, both sides will sag. If the bushings are getting tired causing excessive toe or camber, it'll happen on both sides at about the same rate. If one side is way out on toe it'll cause the car to crab and wear both sides.

Thanks guys - I always assumed the rear suspension was "fixed" - I will see if I can get some adjustment out of it.