So, I bought new tires back in March and had them mounted on my XXR's, drove the car up until about 2 weeks ago and parked it. I'm selling my XXR's to a buddy of mine with a S13, and putting the stock wheels back on. I was going to unmount my tires and have them remounted, but noticed some odd wear on the front ones. I had an alignment when I put the tires on, and everything was in spec from what I was told. It looks to me like its only the inside 3-4 inches of the tire that is wore down. The rear tires have more tread in the same areas then the front, which is odd. Is this a toe issue, or camber? I will need adjustable A-arms to correct this? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

Post your alignment specs

 

I don't know them off the top of my head. It was within the stock alignment range on the laser alignment rack. I think the camber was on the high side though. Maybe 2.2 degrees on the Front Right, and 1.8 degrees on the Front Left. Thats just a guess. I know for a fact it was borderline out of spec, but didn't think it would chew the tires up like that. I'm dropped quite a bit in the front. My tire specs are 215/45/18 on an 8.5 with +5 offset in the front, and I'm tucking about a 1/8 or so of tire. Here's a side profile shot of the car if that helps. I tried to edit the image to make it easier to see the wheel. Thanks

 

Did you get the alignment with these particular set of rims and tires?

 

Yes. And the previous tires never wore like this.

 

^^I have the same issue bro. I got an alignment when I got new front tires, and now, a few months later, the insides of the front are showing wire. The alignment specs were within oem range too, except for a bit of camber up front, which the guy said was totally fine. The rears are fine however....

 

Yeah my rears are mint. They are showing normal wear. and its more evenly spread across the tire. I may just get adjustable A-Arms and have it re-aligned.

 

Looks like camber wear. Toe wear will give you feathering, or saw tooth like wear.

Z is a sports car. Sports cars have negative camber for better handling. Just because it was within OEM specs, it doesn't mean that those settings are best for even tire wear. Also, I think the OEM specs allow the fronts to have more camber than the rears, which is why your fronts have worse wear. Plus, you said you're lowered, which means you automatically have more negative camber -- why is this a surprise?

If you want to maximize your tires and don't care about handling, get camber arms and dial them closer to 0º. It will get you out of OEM specs, but your tires will last longer.

 

Being lowered the compression arm bushings are probably destroyed, car does not hold alignment.

I'm stumped why someone would violate the first rule in modding a car, " Tires must be equal or wider than stock" pretty freaking lame man.

 

To me that doesn't look like camber wear. If your toe is in spec but you have a good amount of negative camber you'll notice it across the whole tire.

 

Easy pal, if I could afford better wheels I would have them. The XXR's that came on the car were garbage. So I'm putting the stock wheels back on. The tires he had on there were trash, and were super sunk with +35 offsets. Went for a mild stretch with 215's just to see how they looked, and I got a good deal on them. It definitely improved the look not being so sunk. Knowing what I know now, 225's would probably fit nice, but I dont like the XXR's so it doesn't matter anyway. When I get the stock wheels back on they will have proper widths. Thanks for the input though holmes. And really though? whats 10mm? I dont track the car.


@3hree5ive0ero,, I know the Z is a sports car. I just figured the tires would last a little longer then 8000 miles? I dont want to sacrifice handling, just get it within factory camber/toe specs so the tires wear as if they were on stock height suspension. If that isn't possible being that low, then ill live with it.

 

Toe can be in spec with compressiom arm bushings trashed, than as soon as the car moves , the toe is screwed up again

 

I'll be checking the compression arm bushings tonight.

 

True true true.

 

All of my bushings checked out except the lower control arm bushing. The part where it connects closest to the car looks messed up. I can take a pic tomorrow, both sides look the same though.


Its where the red dot is

 

Yes the ones where the red dot are commenly fail, please post the pic. The compression arm bushings are hard to tell on the car, typically they don't last long when lowered , and only 60k to 80k at stock height.

 

So here is the drivers & passengers side lower control arm bushings. They look pretty jacked up. I will be replacing them. Is this a possibility as to the abnormal wear? I think it may be the culprit. I reached up into the compression arm bushings and felt around and they seem to be intact as of now. The car only has 62K and has been lowered for only 10K. I think i might get UCA's anyway just because. Excuse the dirty suspension components, the car is getting fully detailed inside and out, as soon as I'm done with school for the semester.

 

Yeah, that's a common issue. Just get poly or solid bushings and you should be good to go.

 

Got to love how an alignment tech missed that. BTW your compressen arm bushings will also be wasted

 

Right? IDK how you could over look something like that.. but anyways, I'm going to replace the front and the rear bushings, I'm getting SPL lockout washers and Kinetix UCA's as well. The car is gonna be off the road until the spring, so ill have plenty of time to get things done.

http://www.z1motorsports.com/350_g35...oducts_id=5122

http://www.z1motorsports.com/350_g35...oducts_id=5120

http://www.z1motorsports.com/350_g35...oducts_id=5094

http://www.z1motorsports.com/350_g35...oducts_id=2168