Tire wear ?

[Indy Lonnie]

Excuse my ignorance... Is the tire wear seen in the pic normal? The outside edges are not touching both front and back. The camber is set to 1.5' at all 4 corners. I have my tire pressures at 18 back / 16 front. It bothers me every time I walk by and wonder if I need to lower the pressure more or what else am I not doing correctly?

 

[JSATX]

I have the same tires, I have noticed both outside and inside edges bubble up and wear faster than the center which is common for low pressure tires, but it also may be part of that tire design.

 

[Indy Lonnie]

On mine, it seems the outside edges are not even touching. I'm just curious if the alignment is off.

 

[JSATX]

Well you mention it’s set to 1.5° and....well that’s all you can do about that.

on track cars you aren’t really going to have much contact with outside edge, its only coming into play in cornering. I don’t see anything to be concerned about but can’t really tell too much from the picture

 

[Karter2026]

My car is doing the same. Not touching the outside edge much at all. I had thought about taking them to 1.0°. But the car is on rails it tracks perfect no pull or wondering. So I have decided to live with it and not mess up a good thing.

 

[Briann1177]

This is after 6,000 miles with it aligned to DF specifications. Come to find out, the camber changes drastically with a passenger in it. My front tires are now set to almost 0 degrees camber which will change to almost the DF spec with myself and a passenger. I now have the same tires as you with about 4,000 miles on them, and no signs of uneven wear. Then again, the Bridgestones have double the wear rating so it might take a few more thousand miles for the uneven wear to manifest itself.

 

[ctuinstra]

This is after 6,000 miles with it aligned to DF specifications. Come to find out, the camber changes drastically with a passenger in it. My front tires are now set to almost 0 degrees camber which will change to almost the DF spec with myself and a passenger. I now have the same tires as you with about 4,000 miles on them, and no signs of uneven wear. Then again, the Bridgestones have double the wear rating so it might take a few more thousand miles for the uneven wear to manifest itself.

Our first set of those tires only lasted 4K miles. Now we are using the Toyo Proxes R1R and love them! No visible wear this season.

 

[Briann1177]

I'm on my second set of front tires. I got the front aligned to almost 0 degrees camber to help reduce the inside wear that you see in my pic above. After about 5,000 miles, my second set of front tires is wearing exactly the same as my first set. They'll end up looking like my first set in another 500 miles or so.

I haven't taken it back to the alignment shop yet, but it looks like the camber has changed. I don't understand how when I haven't touched a thing with the alignment.

Can anybody explain what's going on? Having to spend $400 for basically a years worth of driving is going to be very annoying.

 

[ctuinstra]

I'm on my second set of front tires. I got the front aligned to almost 0 degrees camber to help reduce the inside wear that you see in my pic above. After about 5,000 miles, my second set of front tires is wearing exactly the same as my first set. They'll end up looking like my first set in another 500 miles or so.

I haven't taken it back to the alignment shop yet, but it looks like the camber has changed. I don't understand how when I haven't touched a thing with the alignment.

Can anybody explain what's going on? Having to spend $400 for basically a years worth of driving is going to be very annoying.

You didn't mention the toe. It could be also causing excessive wear. Also check the metal L-brackets on the upper part of the uprights. They tend to get bent under stress and could have thrown off you alignment.

Oh, the last alignment we got was terrible!!!! Lonny showed us how bad it was. So much for "computer laser alignment". Our tracking was way off, so bad, we could see it just looking at it.

 

[Karter2026]

Oh, the last alignment we got was terrible!!!! Lonny showed us how bad it was. So much for "computer laser alignment". Our tracking was way off, so bad, we could see it just looking at it.

It also depends on who is doing the alignment.

Brian Did they align the car with you in the driver seat? I learned this back in the late 70's from my dad. My uncles car would wear tires quickly. Dad checked the alignment it was right where it was set. Put my uncle in the driver seat Bam! It was not even close.

I suggest getting one of these Digital angle finders some mason string, jack stands and a good tape measure. Check it according to Adam's alignment post. I used that my car is on rails. I do think there is a bit too much camber up front but I will wait until I kill these tires first before I start over.

 

[Lonny]

I think your tire wear is from too much caster. As you turn caster leans the top of the outside tire inward at a time when it is seeing a heavy load. So when you are making aggressive turns it is only using about two thirds of your tire.

It looks like you need to remove some of the caster. I would start with taking out about three degrees while you still have your old tires on your Goblin.

You can chalk up a patch of your tire, drive it around an hit some turns like you normally do and see if it moves the wear pattern away from the inside of the tire.

The tire wear you have is not from the negative camber that we recommend, When you are driving in a straight line there is not enough load on the tires to cause that damage. I would go back to at least -1 degrees camber. It will help the tire grip better during slight turns like highway driving.

I will run this by Adam and see if he agrees.

 

[Karter2026]

I think your tire wear is from too much caster. As you turn caster leans the top of the outside tire inward at a time when it is seeing a heavy load. So when you are making aggressive turns it is only using about two thirds of your tire.

It looks like you need to remove some of the caster. I would start with taking out about three degrees while you still have your old tires on your Goblin.

You can chalk up a patch of your tire, drive it around an hit some turns like you normally do and see if it moves the wear pattern away from the inside of the tire.

The tire wear you have is not from the negative camber that we recommend, When you are driving in a straight line there is not enough load on the tires to cause that damage. I would go back to at least -1 degrees camber. It will help the tire grip better during slight turns like highway driving.

I will run this by Adam and see if he agrees.

That makes sense to me Lonny. There is quite a bit of lean when cornering You can not see it from the driver seat very well. at least with fenders on the car One of my co workers pointed it out to me on my car.

 

[Briann1177]

The first alignment was done without anybody sitting in it. The second alignment was done with someone in the driver's seat. When I brought the car home after the second alignment, I could tell that the wheels were pretty much straight up and down with nobody sitting in it. This morning, I stepped back and took another look and there is definitely some visible camber going on. I don't know how much, but it's there.

I guess the part that I don't understand is how things got out of adjustment. With the exception of some madman-esque driving at the Dragon, I don't really corner too aggressively. At least I don't think I do. I checked the L-brackets, and they don't appear to be bent as far as I can tell.