[s-cars] tire wear on a lowered cars

[Bill Clancy]

Well... here is my experience (not sure that I have any clout on this 
list....but I'll try anyway).

A car is supposed to have camber, either positive or negative.    Depending 
on which way the camber is... that CAN be where you see your wear -- and 
usually do.     If the camber were 0... you'd get the wear from toe in or 
toe out as LL pointed out below.

So what does all that come out to?    Normal camber and normal toe may wear 
your tires a little.    but that's what the tires are for (sort of) -- to be 
used up.   The question is how fast are you willing to use up your tires.

Back to Camber for a minute... .5 or 1 degree of camber is standard on just 
about every car.    But when you get into negative 1.5-2.0...  that's when 
you're really going to have to accept that the tires will wear on the 
insides.

Then the question might be... why don't all cars have this problem?   My 
answer... they do.  --  if they are fun to drive performance cars.    A 
quite Toyota Sedan driven by a careful driver tends not to burn up the 
tires.    But if you are into cranking down those struts and sway bars and 
ripping around corners.... well, the tires are going to wear... even with a 
good alignment.

I think 15,000 miles is acceptable on a set of tires.     If that number 
drops to more like 10,000.... then maybe the car is set up too aggressively 
or you are driving too aggressively.    But to expect 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 
miles out of a set of tires?    -- that's for your mom's Mazda.. or for the 
Lincoln town car driven by the limo guy.

That's all just my experience.   I never get more than 15,000 out of the 
tires... and I have always wrestled with alignments and tire pressure trying 
to prolong the tires.     And this experience is on 20 years of driving... 
every car had a stick....with stiff springs... etc... and I sort of like to 
see what the car will do.... so I pay for it -- In tires!

-Bill




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "LL - NY" <larrycleung at gmail.com>
To: "Dave Ellis" <UrS4 at sympatico.ca>
Cc: <kbogach at comcast.net>; <s-car-list at audifans.com>
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: [s-cars] tire wear on a lowered cars


> Also consider toe-in. If the car is toed-in too much, the outside edges 
> will
> wear,
> with some feathering (the overhanging "edge" would be towards the inside 
> of
> the car.) could explain the further uneven wear towards the middle section
> of
> the tread. Toe-out has the opposite effect (inside wear, with feathering).
> Had the latter issue on my 200Q post lowering and although I knew the toe
> was out, I didn't have the time to remedy right away. 6 weeks later, I had
> badly
> worn tires. I've been told toe actually has a worse effect on wear than
> camber.
> LL - NY
>
> On 10/7/05, Dave Ellis <UrS4 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hey Konstantin,
>>
>> I also used SP8000s on my S4 (and on my A4). No unexpected or uneven
>> tire wear except for the first summer after purchasing my S4 where the
>> alignment was really off. In that case the inner edges of both front
>> tires wore down a very noticeable amount before I got around to getting
>> an alignment done. Since lowering the car with an Eibach/Boge setup (no
>> camber plate changes from stock) tire wear has been good. So all in
>> all, I suspect your alignment might be off a little.
>>
>> One thing to keep in mind, the wider the tire the more you will see the
>> effects of some alignment troubles. When I first bought my S4 it was
>> equipped with 205/55-16 high performance summer tires and tire wear was
>> fine. When I swapped in 225/50-16 tires the inside edges were worn away
>> in just six weeks. With 255 width tires correct alignment becomes even
>> more critical.
>>
>> -Dave
>>
>>
>>
>> kbogach at comcast.net wrote:
>>
>> >Hello.
>> >I have SP8000 tires on lowered UrS4 '93 with 2B camber plates. Camber is
>> -0.6, everything else is spec, according to my local STS shop. By the 
>> way,
>> they did mine both 200tq (stock suspension) and it looks perfect after 
>> many
>> miles. There is an excessive outer edge wear on the front SP8000s. Plus, 
>> I
>> was told, there is not good wearing pattern overall: the adjacent edges 
>> on
>> two adjacent treads are of different hight (different wear). I tried to
>> depict it below.
>> >Before I shell off $200 for alignment at a dealer I'd like to ask
>> question: if the current alignment is actually what is on the shop's
>> printout, shall I see obvious uneven wear on 10Kmi old SP8000s? Can it be
>> specific to performance tires? These ones my first performance tires 
>> ever.
>> >
>> >Thanks.
>> >Konstantin.
>> >UrS4 '93
>> >200tq '89
>> >200tqa' 89
>> >_ _
>> > | /
>> > | |
>> > |_____|
>> >
>> >
>>
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