Excessive inside tire wear, help!

[blackGSX2g]

Ok I'm sick of replacing front tires on my car. I recently put my new summer rims and tires on my car and got an alignment. Now after maybe 1500 miles the inside edges of my front tires are already showing excessive wear, especially after only 1500 miles.

Wheel/tire specs:

18x8 Enkei RPM 2 with 225/40/18 Toyo Proxes FZ4 tires

Alignment specs:

Left front: Right front:
Camber -1.1* -1.4*
Caster 4.1* 4.1*
Toe 0.00* 0.02*
Total toe 0.03*
Steer ahead -0.01*

Left rear: Right rear:
Camber -2.3* -2.4*
Toe 0.12* -0.01*




Now from what I've read, running around -1* should not kill tires this quickly. All suspension, wheel bearings, brakes, ball joints, and axles are brand new and I am running the RRE front camber kit. The rear tires never show any wear, just the fronts. Any suggestions?

 

[jtmcinder]

Your front camber and toe (assuming accurate measurements) cannot be the source of the problem. Whether screwed up rear toe (as you have) could cause you to have to steer enough to scrape away the fronts seems doubtful, as well.

So, please describe exactly what the wear on the front tires looks like. Is it a smooth stripping away of the tread or is there any cupping or feathering?

- Jtoby

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

Slightly off topic, you really should do the homemade rear camber kit. That's a LOT of rear camber, especially with your small amount of front camber. You usually want 2/3 of the front camber in the rear, or less.

 

[jtmcinder]

Slightly off topic, you really should do the homemade rear camber kit. That's a LOT of rear camber, especially with your small amount of front camber. You usually want 2/3 of the front camber in the rear, or less.

Agreed, in general, although the specific amounts of suggested camber depend on what the car is used for. In this case, about a quarter-inch of washers should do the trick. And then get the rear re-aligned to have less total toe-in and make sure the toe values are closer to equal, side to side. One helpful trick is to shoot a can of PB'laster or Thrust at the eccentric bolts on the rear toe arms the night before going in for the alignment. 2G rear toe arms are known to seize.

But, as you said, this is off-topic.

- Jtoby

 

[1LE]

Dunno, that's crazy to get wear that fast with such mild settings. I've run as much as -3.2 degrees camber with 1/16" toe out on my MR2 (autox setup) and got near 10k miles out of my tires.

 

[blackGSX2g]

Yea, I know the rear toe is off. Its the typical frozen adjuster, I'll get on that when the weather warms up a bit. I'll also install my home-brew rear camber kit at the same time, though I have never worn through the rear tires since I've owned the car; even with the excessive rear camber.

This picture best represents the wear on the tires. Picture is of the driver's side, the passenger's has not progressed as far as the driver's yet. Also, the whole inside diameter does not look like the picture illustrates, I'd say only half of it is this bad. The other half has wear, but maybe about half as much as the picture.

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[jtmcinder]

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me yet, so I'd like to work by elimination. Have you checked the wheel bearings?

- Jtoby

 

[blackGSX2g]

Yep, both wheel bearings have maybe a few months on them and checked out fine. I took them out maybe 1500 miles ago when I replaced my axles and put the new rims/tires on to verify.

Both the inner and outer tie rods all around have been replaced within the past few months.

I just took off my RRE camber kit (anchor bolts) and have found that the inside bushings are fairly loose; and by that I mean to the point that if I turn them on their side the bushing falls out. I don't remember them being that loose when I put them on, but it was awhile ago.

When I jack the car up I can't detect any weird play the upper control arm, but the loose bushings are beginning to worry me. Is it time for a new front camber correction kit?

 

[jtmcinder]

That's starting to fit a theory. The wear looks a lot like what you get with lots of inside-tire drag. The outside tire (after body roll) sits flat or even positive in camber and wears the outside, but the inside tire gets excessively negative (after body roll) and gets dragged sideways across the pavement on the inside edge. You get very focused wear on the inside "corner" of the tire that is smooth: no cupping or feathering. This would be greatly increased if the upper control were loose for any reason (including slop in the bushings).

Do you have a tendency to enter corners a little bit hot and scrub off speed? Your car could probably do this well, given it has more rear camber than front. If you do this, then this also fits the theory.

- Jtoby

 

[blackGSX2g]

No, I usually slow down before the turn. The 1500 miles that are on it currently have been very conservative (in regards to turning and high speed banking).

If the above theory applies to my car, would I be showing any amount of outside edge tire wear? Reason being I've got about 3 sets of tires that all show this wear pattern on the inside edge while the outsides and middle still look brand new.

I've got a fairly new Ingall's front camber correction kit I could swap in and see what that does. I just had clearance problems during full suspension travel between the strut housing and the upper ball joint for the day I had used it.