Hello I need help...can someone tell me how to stop the tire feathering The car has 100k miles and I just bought nismo s-tune suspension for the front and the rear I also got sway bars. My question is will the feathering stop once I install the new nismo S-tune suspension? Thank you

 

NO - install the Nismo set up then get alignment done

 

That is pretty serious. I installed the nismo S-tune suspension about 2,000 miles ago. Probability that it will "fix" feathering is about 20 percent.

Q: Why did you NOT swap tires 10,000 miles ago?

 

Get some adjustable camber arms. Nissan's "tire feathering" issue is really just negetive camber set in to promote better handling. If you don't need the extra little bit of handling, or are just going to drive the car on the street, then get some adjustable arms and dial the camber back in.

 

How often have you/previous owner had the car aligned?

 

You mean rotate? The tires are about 8 months old.

 

You can't rotate on the Z. You can swap them from side to side, the old inside edge becomes the outside edge and vice-versa. That doubles the life and evens out the wear.

How about alignments?

 

I got the car aligned about a year ago.

 

The tires are directional so a regular rotation will not work. A swap will put the inside on the outside and outside on inside.

Hint: Estimate life of tire. Swap at half that.

 

Depending on your road quality and how you drive, that may not be often enough. The shop doing the alignment may not have calibrated their machine leaving you with improper toe setting. That's the cause of the feathering.

 

I am probably wrong, but this doesn't look like feathering. It looks like cupping to me.

http://www.procarcare.com/includes/c...dtirewear.html

 

It's hard to tell from pictures anyway - not enough detail, shadows, dirt, lighting... You can really tell by feel more than appearance.

 

We generally refer to the high-low block pattern as feathering. The high block has a distinctive high ridge that can be easily felt and seen from the side. Looks like a saw tooth from the side. Feathering or cupping it is typical 350Z wear.

 

Wow!!! Thank you for the link it really helps explain what the problem might be. A lot of info. Thanks.

 

not really

 

You sir, are a descriptive machine!
Thanks.

 

Have anything else to add to that? My tires are "feathered" because of my camber settings, I'm sure if I dialed them back in that they would wear evenly.

 

Feathering is caused by toe setting, not camber. Negative camber wears the inner edge smooth.

 

exactly.

you can run a lot of negative camber before you will even begin to realize uneven tire wear. i have run upwards of -3 with no adverse effects on tire wear.

i always keep my front toe at 0.

fwiw tire feathering can also be a function of the tire used. some tires have softer outer/inner tread blocks and simply cannot cope with the amount of toe in todays performance cars use. take for instance goodyear eagle all seasons, those things will cup/feather/whatever on damn near anything.

 

You beat me to it