Tires wearing on the inside edge

[MaxRX7]

Quick question, I'm still rolling on the original Dunlops that came with the car and am about to repalce them with another set.

The tires have 24k miles on them, the other day I rotated the tires and noticed that all 4 tires had more wear towards the inside versus the outside edge. I do sometimes take hard turns on corners. Just wondering if anybody else noticed this.

 

[evilmonkeyMSP]

your camber is off...you need an alignment...

is your car lowered?

 

[mhrebin]

time for some new rubbers and a alignment.lol

 

[njaremka]

your camber is off...you need an alignment...

is your car lowered?

toe is off, not camber. camber alone won't rub tires like that, but toe will eat the edges apart.

 

[bucksatan]

Make sure that your shop checks out all 4 wheels when they do the alignment, since they are all wearing unevenly. And do it before you spend the money on new tires.

 

[pasadena_commut]

Make sure that your shop checks out all 4 wheels when they do the alignment, since they are all wearing unevenly. And do it before you spend the money on new tires.

That's what I did last time and the alignment shop told me "the alignment might not be accurate because the tires are worn unevenly." I figured this was mostly a ruse to get me to buy new tires from them, but it's possible there's a grain of truth to it. In any case, I had the alignment done on the old tires, then replaced them, and the (different) shop that did that checked the alignment and said it was ok. So at least in some situations its ok to align on the old tires.

 

[arcane73]

yep, my car has done the same. I'm in the process of deciding on what to replace my goodyears with.

 

[njaremka]

That's what I did last time and the alignment shop told me "the alignment might not be accurate because the tires are worn unevenly." I figured this was mostly a ruse to get me to buy new tires from them, but it's possible there's a grain of truth to it. In any case, I had the alignment done on the old tires, then replaced them, and the (different) shop that did that checked the alignment and said it was ok. So at least in some situations its ok to align on the old tires.

load-o-crap. tires should have nothing to do with the alignment. also, most shops will look at the machine, and when they see all "green", he figures..."well, its within factory specs, so its alright" - that still doesn't mean its a "Good" alignment. a good shop should try to get the numbers as close to "zero" (center of tolerance) as possible. the tolerance is ther IF they can't zero the numbers. then, a good shop wil at least try to balance the numbers. (get left and right the same) if your shop can't do that, get a new shop.

 

[PimpSmurf]

hahaha... i take mine to Big O and they do a great job... they give u a whole print out of starting and ending measurements so u know how much it has been changed... and btw tires do not have much to do with suspension, i agree, but suspension has everything to do with tires... when the tires wear unevenly like that (especially only on the inside edge) it means alignment... only other thing is that it could be that ur tires r under inflated... but that normally means they wear on inside and outside edge and not in middle... that's wut my dad did... because of the low pro tires he never realized they were running low and just kept driving it... shredded the set of dunlops on it... that's when my parents found out they are like $200 a piece to replace... how messed up is that?

and njaremka, u never want the numbers zeroed... ur supposed to have a certain number of degrees of toe and camber... i think it's around 1.something degrees but i'd really have to look... that's what keeps the tires level in hard turning... otherwise the instant u go into a hard turn ur gonna ride the outside edge of your tire and lose traction... u have to look up the actual value if you are going to do the alignment yourself

 

[njaremka]

i didn't mean zero-zero, but center of tolerance zero. ie: if your mark is 1 1/2, then your "zero" is 1.

 

[PimpSmurf]

i didn't mean zero-zero, but center of tolerance zero. ie: if your mark is 1 1/2, then your "zero" is 1.

i got it... i was just worried it would confuse him more than anything else... Big O does a fairly good job at that as well... when alignment is within the normal range they will try to get it as close to centered as possible for me

 

[MaxRX7]

thanks for the feedback guys. My car is not lowered (OEM shocks/springs), and tracks straight, but I'll go ahead and check alignment anyways.

yep, my car has done the same. I'm in the process of deciding on what to replace my goodyears with.

ok cool, atleat it's not just me.

 

[arcane73]

ok cool, atleat it's not just me.

nope, not just you
i just need to find somewhere local that will do a good job.....

 

[goldwing2000]

toe is off, not camber. camber alone won't rub tires like that, but toe will eat the edges apart.

Camber and toe can both cause uneven wear. The only thing that doesn't cause wear is caster.

And since MaxRX7's car is stock (assuming it's a P5), neither caster nor camber are adjustable. With MacPherson struts front and back, it's just "toe and go".

Unfortunately, most of today's cars are built with negative camber for better handling, so you'll always have uneven wear. The only way around it is to buy non-directional tires and have them flipped around on the wheel half way through their life.

 

[pasadena_commut]

Unfortunately, most of today's cars are built with negative camber for better handling, so you'll always have uneven wear. The only way around it is to buy non-directional tires and have them flipped around on the wheel half way through their life.

Is that safe even on a non-directional radial? I thought once a radial was on a car for a while it was bad news to rotate it to the other side (or flip it around on the same wheel.) However even if tires are directional they can be rotated side to side by removing the tires from the wheels and swapping side to side while maintaining direction. For asymmetric tires I don't think there's a safe way to rotate them side to side.

It's probably ok to put any tire on the wrong side for a few miles, just don't
expect to drive that way forever.

 

[goldwing2000]

Actually, if you rotate them regularly, today's modern radials don't have the belt separation problems that tires from 10-20 years ago had when you changed direction with them.

And good point about the side-to-side swapping of directionals. It's a little more work but it's worth it if you have expensive tires.

 

[caldep1]

Sorry to bring this thread back up but my P5 kills the inside of the tires. The wear is extreme and is limited to the inside corner of the tire (tread meets sidewall). This is the usual cause for me to replace my tires (20K to 25K miles wires busted through). The rest of the tire is usually fine. This wear is so well defined it looks like the tires are rubbing against a bolt in the care or something. I still run the original tire size.

I have had the aligment done 5 times by four different shops but nothing changes this wear pattern. The dealer said my problem was alignment. Each shop swears the alignment is way off whenever I have them check it (one time within one month).

The car now has 170K miles on it.

 

[Rockin03mp5]

My Dunlops were worn incredibly bad on the inside edge on all 4 wheels. So bad that all 4 eventually started separating. It got worse in a matter of a month. I did manage to get 65000 miles on the original tires, probably not safely. I then got 4 Toyo Proxes4's and had the shop (Belle Tire) do an alignment. They said it was so bad that it was off there charts. They had to guess, and recheck to get a reading to actually align properly. I've now had these tires for 15000 miles and have had them rotated and the Toyos seem to be wearing ok. I also try to check my tire pressure often.

Not sure if this helps but I think it was the alignment that was bad. (for me at least) I drive mostly interstate (very little curves=no fun, unless there is traffic(drive2)) so I'm not cornering hard often. I've never heard the tires hitting anything under hard cornering.

I dont know what to say about the dueling shops though.
I'm also still sporting the stock tires and size. (195 50R16s)
MI roads also suck.

 

[goldwing2000]

I'd have to say that this problem is probably due to some worn and/or broken parts. Is it front, rear, left, right, all of the above?

 

[Fluffy Bunny]

I'd have to say that this problem is probably due to some worn and/or broken parts. Is it front, rear, left, right, all of the above?

It might just be poor design/material - have heard quite a few comments on it.

Found my OEM Dunlops starting to wear uneven at @14K. Dealer was not that surprised and stated that it was outside of the 12K limit on making any changes...

I have had it checked/adjusted four times since then (now at 64K).

With the roads in Pennsylvania, last person who checked it out (two weeks ago) said one should probably have it checked once a year...