"Premature" tire wear?

[fadeaway]

I drive my parents 1998 toyota camry, since I do not have a car yet of my own. I've been driving the car for about 6 months or so, quite often. They're always worried about me messing up the car, etc.

So they take the car in for an oil change today, and realize something is wrong with the timing chain, and also that 2 tires are prematurely worn out. About the timing chain, I'm sure I can tell them that it is very normal to replace the timing chain especially since the car has 86k miles on it now. Am I correct?

About the tires, I was doing a little research and saw that wheel alignment may have some effect on tire wear? How true is this? The wheel alignment on the camry is horrible. I'll be driving strait and the car will just keep tilting to the right, I beleive it's a pretty bad case of bad wheel alignment.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thanks alot.
Dan Gessler

[CapriRacer]

..."some effect on tire wear? How true is this? "...

Imagine you are driving staright ahead and the 2 front tires are pointing different directions, but the net effect is the vehicle goes straight. In essence you are dragging both tires sideways. It's like taking an eraser (same material), and rubbing it on a piece of paper - some of the rubber gets rubbed off. The tire is supposed to be rolling forward.

The fact that you have a pull indicates the alignment is not right.

Hope this helps.

[NOS Buyer]

Where are they wearing out at?

Some of this can be caused by parking and hitting a curb for example. If you do this often, the tire will wear out pretty quick. but only on the right tires this will happen.

[catback23]

We haven't been racing the camry have we? But an off alignment will wear the tires unevenly and prematurely. 86k is early for a timing chain but knowing japanese cars it's probably made out of some plastic alloy and is worn and stretched to hell. Of course that's not the bad part cuse it was caught early before engine damage the bad part is when they charge a hell of alot for the part because it has to be imported from japan.