Cars We Drive!

[idfnl]



Does anyone know what might cause uneven rear tire wear?

More specifically, the rear right tire on my car is significantly more worn down than the rear left tire. The tread depth is almost entirely gone on the right, whereas the left still had some depth.

Tire pressure is at 38 PSI for all four tires and the PO said he aligned the car when he installed the eibachs and after 1000 miles of installing it, aligned them again.

Maybe it needs another alignment? Thoughts?

It'd feel wasteful to buy four more tires when the other three have plenty of tread left.. Any way I can salvage this situation? Maybe purposely don't realign the car and just swap the two rear tires with each other to induce more even wear?

Tire wear can be from a myriad of causes.

Bent wheel, under or over inflation for extended periods, lack of tire rotation, worn shocks or bushings, you may have a bent suspension component, alignment, wheel balance off. In addition the tire may be out of round or have a bubble.

Depends on how severe your issue is, but worst case you have a bent wheel or a bent suspension.

2 alignments so soon is a red flag. No car needs 2 alignments within 1000 miles. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a perished bushing.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Does anyone know what might cause uneven rear tire wear?

More specifically, the rear right tire on my car is significantly more worn down than the rear left tire. The tread depth is almost entirely gone on the right, whereas the left still had some depth.

Tire pressure is at 38 PSI for all four tires and the PO said he aligned the car when he installed the eibachs and after 1000 miles of installing it, aligned them again.

Maybe it needs another alignment? Thoughts?

It'd feel wasteful to buy four more tires when the other three have plenty of tread left.. Any way I can salvage this situation? Maybe purposely don't realign the car and just swap the two rear tires with each other to induce more even wear?

Is it lowered at all? That affects camber which in turn can cause uneven tire wear

 

[GreenFrog]

My bad, correction: he didn't have to get it re-aligned after 1000 miles, but he checked for alignment and it was within spec (i.e., no alignment issues).

 

[idfnl]



My bad, correction: he didn't have to get it re-aligned after 1000 miles, but he checked for alignment and it was within spec (i.e., no alignment issues).

Is the wear even across the face of the tire or is it more prevalent inside or out? Even wear doesn't make sense.

 

[GreenFrog]



Is the wear even across the face of the tire or is it more prevalent inside or out? Even wear doesn't make sense.

I'm going to have to check again when I'm free but it's pretty evenly worn.

 

[GreenFrog]



Is it lowered at all?  That affects camber which in turn can cause uneven tire wear

It's lowered on Eibach springs but the PO aligned the car after installing them and as mentioned earlier, rechecked the alignment after 1000 miles with the springs and found no alignment issues.

 

[idfnl]

With programming, when you have a bug its usually because of the last thing that was changed.

My guess is something in the process of changing springs, whether part or mechanics error, isn't right.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Might be a part causing that one wheel to be toe-in or toe-out aggressively. If not at rest than at some point in the travel.

Forgive my ignorance to the specifics to this situation, but it may be a combination of a slipping differential and aggressive driving. I'm not up on new cars, but in the classics we would see uneven tire wear side-to-side if the differential was failing since one tire would bear the brunt of the power delivery.

 

[A Y]



Forgive my ignorance to the specifics to this situation, but it may be a combination of a slipping differential and aggressive driving. I'm not up on new cars, but in the classics we would see uneven tire wear side-to-side if the differential was failing since one tire would bear the brunt of the power delivery.

Aggressive driving would be my guess as well, and maybe GF likes to turn left a lot (nonascar). But the alignment is an easy thing to check. Pictures might help too, to judge the difference between the two sides.

 

[GreenFrog]

Tire pressure is fine and my gut feeling is that the alignment is fine; I think it may be the differential.

The wearing is pretty even across the rear right tire, but ill snap pics of both rears and upload them later today. The difference is quite dramatic.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Does the car pull when you are cruising? how about when accelerating?

 

[JayJay]



Does anyone know what might cause uneven rear tire wear?

Dropped my car off for routine service this morning. Checked out fine except for needing two new rear tires. A major road trip starts Wednesday, so I had no choice but to replace them.

Aggressive driving would be my guess as well...

This is why I need new rears.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

It's lowered on Eibach springs but the PO aligned the car after installing them and as mentioned earlier, rechecked the alignment after 1000 miles with the springs and found no alignment issues.

Correct me if I am wrong but I always thought that an alignment won't really help with wheel camber.

 

[A Y]

Most street cars let you adjust front camber, but not rear. Lowering will increase negative camber (the top of the wheels leans into the car more), all else being equal. Increased negative camber will wear out the inside edges of the tires most for normal street driving. AutoX and track drivers want more negative camber for more grip in the corners and also to reduce the wear on the outside of the tire (because the wheel leans out in corners). A car with normal alignment driven hard in the corners will show wear on its outside edges most. This is also how you tell who's a poseur when they're talking about their mad driving skillz on the streets.

For RWD cars, the rears wear out about 2x as fast as the fronts. On high HP, heavy cars like the M5, it may be faster.

 

[GreenFrog]



Does the car pull when you are cruising? how about when accelerating?

The car doesn't pull when cruising, but when accelerating aggressively, it's always the right rear tire, 100% of the time, that loses traction.

Dropped my car off for routine service this morning. Checked out fine except for needing two new rear tires. A major road trip starts Wednesday, so I had no choice but to replace them.
This is why I need new rears.

I may be following suit.. depending on how my tire situation plays out.

Correct me if I am wrong but I always thought that an alignment won't really help with wheel camber.

I may be mistaken as well, but I'm pretty sure that camber adjustments also take place during an alignment procedure.

--

Anyway, snapped some pics of my tires. As you can see, there is significantly less tread on the right rear tire:

Left

Right