Bad Alignment?

Hey guys. Today I had the car in at a local collision shop because I had smoked a huge raccoon and part of my front bumper had caved in, and was getting a repair estimate. Well...while they had the car on the lift, they pointed out that my tires had really bad uneven wear that I hadn't noticed. There is about a 1 inch strip on the inside of each front tire that is nearly bald...and on the right side the tire is beginning to shread. I was like WTF?

Anyway, these are not cheapo tires. Pirelli P Zero's that ran about $120 at the time I got them about 2 years ago. I DID HAVE AN ALIGNMENT DONE AT A DEALER and all tires were balanced (even though they used the wrong type of weights, I fixed that myself after about 6k miles). I re-balanced them in shop class with stick-on weights and they were done right, I made sure of it. The car rode straight as hell and didn't pull. I also rotated the tires at that time, and didn't notice any uneven wear.

The two back tires are still wearing evenly. I have not re-balanced or rotated since then, and have put about 12k on them. The guy at the shop said I either have really messed up alignment, or my ball joints are going to shit. I just checked prices on the tires, and it will cost me about $220 to have two new tires shipped to my house. Once I get them, I will take it to my trusted mechanic and have him give the car a once over to see if he can see what the deal is. Any thoughts? Could the alignment have gotten that messed up after just 18k miles? I can't think of anything I did to mess it up.

Its possible to throw it out of alignment from something as simple as a pothole or something as extreme as road racing around some curves doing 80+mph everyday. But we'll let you tell the story of what its from. lol :wink:

Wearing on the inside of your tires means your camber is messed up. You either have hit a few pretty good sized pot holes and/or the alignment was never done correctly and/or your balljoints are going to hell and/or your wheel bearings are going to hell (you would hear a howling noise if this was the case though). Check out the balljoints first and if they check out, go and get your front tires aligned.

well the balance dosent have nothing to do with the wear of the tires/ irs got to be the alighnment or something going to hell.

Too much toe-out would cause it.. If it were even on both sides, you wouldn't feel a pull, either.

Toe-out will wear out the whole tire extremely fast. Too much positive or negative camber will wear on the edges of the tire. I'm 99% sure that it's the camber that is off (either from bad alignment/balljoints/etc, look at my list above). It's the same problem that lowered cars have, that's why they have camber kits. And yes Travis you're right, balance really has nothing to do with the uneven wearing across the tire.

Well I ordered two new tires yesterday. $223 with shipping, not too bad since two years ago it would have cost me more like $265.

Monday I'm getting an alignment, and I'll make sure they check to see that the ball joints are good. I'm pretty sure it's not wheel bearings, because there is no howl or anything that I can tell.

The tires are screwed up on both the left and right wheels in the front, pretty much in the same spot but the right one is severely screwed. One of the belts is already starting to show, so I'm glad I ordered tires right away.

Too much toe-out would cause it.. If it were even on both sides, you wouldn't feel a pull, either.

See that's just the thing...I had no idea it was messed up. The thing drives straight and the wheels don't wobble really at all. If I hadn't had the thing jacked up at the collision shop, I would still have no fucking clue. I drive interstate a lot and I really felt no difference from any other time, at 75 mph the thing felt like normal...virtually no pull or wobble.

And yes Travis you're right, balance really has nothing to do with the uneven wearing across the tire.



i know lol im the manager at a tire shop :grinyes:

you can mess up you alliment racing taking turns fast potholes, or even having losse nuts on you a-arm. or bad a-arms.

AGAIN, too much toe-out will not cause wearing on just the insides of the tires. Toe-in and toe-out will wear out tires like a mothafucker, but not just on one edge. Camber does that.

i know lol im the manager at a tire shop :grinyes:

Haha I thought you were asking that as a question when you made that comment (about the balance).

PS Hey Travis, do you still have a parts car layin around, or have access to one?

I think there is some confusion in this thread. :) Camber with no toe will absolutely not wear tires. I have about 300k miles combined on different vehicles that illustrate this ;) ALL cars have some negative front camber, and all cars do not wear the inside edges of the tires. ;) It's the combination of the two. You would NEVER want zero camber in the front (in the rear for a drag only car, yes. Maybe even a little positive so it goes to zero under squat at launch), but you can get away with zero toe. Toe will really just affect the turn in sensitivity (toe out) and straight line stability (toe in). A toe setting of zero is actually not a bad compromise when you consider it will allow you to run loads of negative camber and still get even tire wear, plus all the benefits of the camber.

To use my last car, the 2g, as an example, I had over 3 degrees of camber on the front, and over 2 degrees in the rear, but all toe and thrust set to zero. I got over 50k miles to a set of all season tires, depsite racing twice a week, countless launches (spinning all 4 most of the time to spool the turbo), hard cornering on the street, etc. I've posted about this car's alignment and tire wear problems many times over the years.

Despite having known this for many years, I didn't apply it to the EVO. Part of me didn't want to mess with the factory settings, this being my first new car and all. But I should have. Camber is at a miniscule 1.5 degrees negative, and the two front snow tires got destroyed. One blew out on the way to Ohio, 300 miles from home. They are 150 a piece. Much less than the 250 a piece Advans I'm back on, and those are showing signs of suffering a similar fate too.

After Buschur posted that an alignment is what helped get his RS into the 10s and he actually saw a change in WHP on their dyno (and they dyno this car constantly, so they know what it is supposed to dyno), I started thinking about it again. I took the car in last friday on the way to the track, to a shop that builds roadrace and autox Miatas. I don't really trust a regular shop to spend the time to get the specs right on, not just in the "green." Turns out the rear wasn't too bad (and the rear tires showed very little wear at all), but we set it to 1 degree negative and zero toe. The front had 1.5 degrees of camber, but nearly a half inch of toe out! From the factory! I knew they toed it out purposely, to make it feel like a slot car, but that's a bit much. No wonder they give you a disclaimer when you buy the car that you can only expect to get 8-10k miles out of the 1000 dollar set of tires!

After the alignment, the car feels much better. I don't have to constantly keep pressure on the steering wheel to keep it straight on the highway, it doesn't track as badly on the crappy New England roads, and it's not trying to drive into the wall on the top end of the quarter mile. Before the alignment I trapped 109-110 on 3 consecutive passes. That night after the alignment the car went 112.x, same settings, same weather, etc. Coincidence? I don't really care if it is or not. The car feels 10 times better, and fuel consumption has gone down as well.

Note that All of this change came from the toe settings. Camber was hardly touched. A couple tenths change here and there to get to some nice round settings. The toe changed significantly. Also note that the car's ability to hold the road in very hard cornering has not changed. This is due to keeping the camber.

That was a novel, but hey, I just went through all this last week so I might as well ramble on while it's still fresh in my mind.

I think there is some confusion in this thread. :) Camber with no toe will absolutely not wear tires. I have about 300k miles combined on different vehicles that illustrate this ;) ALL cars have some negative front camber, and all cars do not wear the inside edges of the tires. ;) It's the combination of the two. You would NEVER want zero camber in the front (in the rear for a drag only car, yes. Maybe even a little positive so it goes to zero under squat at launch), but you can get away with zero toe. Toe will really just affect the turn in sensitivity (toe out) and straight line stability (toe in). A toe setting of zero is actually not a bad compromise when you consider it will allow you to run loads of negative camber and still get even tire wear, plus all the benefits of the camber.

To use my last car, the 2g, as an example, I had over 3 degrees of camber on the front, and over 2 degrees in the rear, but all toe and thrust set to zero. I got over 50k miles to a set of all season tires, depsite racing twice a week, countless launches (spinning all 4 most of the time to spool the turbo), hard cornering on the street, etc. I've posted about this car's alignment and tire wear problems many times over the years.

Despite having known this for many years, I didn't apply it to the EVO. Part of me didn't want to mess with the factory settings, this being my first new car and all. But I should have. Camber is at a miniscule 1.5 degrees negative, and the two front snow tires got destroyed. One blew out on the way to Ohio, 300 miles from home. They are 150 a piece. Much less than the 250 a piece Advans I'm back on, and those are showing signs of suffering a similar fate too.

After Buschur posted that an alignment is what helped get his RS into the 10s and he actually saw a change in WHP on their dyno (and they dyno this car constantly, so they know what it is supposed to dyno), I started thinking about it again. I took the car in last friday on the way to the track, to a shop that builds roadrace and autox Miatas. I don't really trust a regular shop to spend the time to get the specs right on, not just in the "green." Turns out the rear wasn't too bad (and the rear tires showed very little wear at all), but we set it to 1 degree negative and zero toe. The front had 1.5 degrees of camber, but nearly a half inch of toe out! From the factory! I knew they toed it out purposely, to make it feel like a slot car, but that's a bit much. No wonder they give you a disclaimer when you buy the car that you can only expect to get 8-10k miles out of the 1000 dollar set of tires!

After the alignment, the car feels much better. I don't have to constantly keep pressure on the steering wheel to keep it straight on the highway, it doesn't track as badly on the crappy New England roads, and it's not trying to drive into the wall on the top end of the quarter mile. Before the alignment I trapped 109-110 on 3 consecutive passes. That night after the alignment the car went 112.x, same settings, same weather, etc. Coincidence? I don't really care if it is or not. The car feels 10 times better, and fuel consumption has gone down as well.

Note that All of this change came from the toe settings. Camber was hardly touched. A couple tenths change here and there to get to some nice round settings. The toe changed significantly. Also note that the car's ability to hold the road in very hard cornering has not changed. This is due to keeping the camber.

That was a novel, but hey, I just went through all this last week so I might as well ramble on while it's still fresh in my mind.
Leave it to Kevin to save the day again... I absolutly love reading your posts man. Everytime I finish one I feel like I've actually learned something. Now I'll be having the Firebird checked out this next week sometime. I never knew such adjustments could make such an impact on fuel consumption and how tight the wheel feels. I bet the Firebirds suspensions all messed up. Its definetly seen better days. lol


:thumbsup::thumbsup: I give it two thumbs up Kevin! lol

But neither one by themself will cause JUST wearing on the inside (or outside) edges, it's a combination of shitty camber and/or shitty toe-in/out.

OR completely stock settings like my car ;)

My point was that you will always have negative camber. And you should, it needs to be there. But you don't need the toe. That's why toe is the problem, and not the camber. You can run all the camber you want and it will not wear tires. The tire does not care that there is a little more pressure on the inside edge, it flexes and spreads the load out anyway (it is filled with air after all). But dragging the tires sideways down the road (toe) will clean the rubber off them real quick. I see your point that you also need camber to wear just one edge, but it's unrealistic to think that you could do without the camber, so wearing the whole tire out with no camber is a situation that will never present itself in real life. And you also have to consider that changing camber or toe can affect the other; and turning the steering wheel, compressing or releasing the suspension, etc, all changes both parameters. But that's where it gets too complicated, so I stop thinking about it at the static parameters. :D

Haha keep goin Kevin! You're on a roll! No I understand completely where you're coming from, I race karts and camber, caster, and toe-in/out plays a HUGE role in how the kart handles, so I've been to hell and back in dealing with all that good stuff.

Either way, he should get an alignment done. :)

Wow Kevin, that was a eduational lesson right there lol. But I liked it. Thanks.

Tires get mounted and car gets aligned Monday.

I also run 4 degree's neg camber in the back, but everything else at 0, so I have more stability in HIGH speed cornering, and I get 40,000 miles out of all my tires with 280 and 320 treadwear. So I know camber is not a wearing angle. Caster and toe or a combo of either/or would be..