Anyone else's front tires scalloped? Please respond if you have 4500+ miles.
 

The inside edge of both of my fronts are beginning to scallop and make an ass-load of noise. At low speeds it sounds like I've got a 4x4 with off-road tires. :( I'm at just over 5100 miles now and my alignment shop swears that the scalloping is a function of the non-adjustable camber, i.e., FU, we can't fix it. They did refund my money for the alignment, but if this is what I can expect everytime I put a new set of tires on, I'm going to be quite upset.

If you feel that your tires are beginning to make a lot more noise than usual, please check to see if you have the same problem as I do. Scalloping (a term I use, may be a better term out there) is when on the edge of a tire, every couple of tread blocks will be worn unevenly and appear that some of the rubber has been planed off at an angle. You can see this very easily by simply examining the tire and looking for areas of the tread block that don't appear to be dirty or pick up as much dirt as other contact patches on the tire. These "clean" areas are the depressions and the scalloping that I refer to.

In my experience, this condition was always a result of improper alignment, but since I've never had a car with this much stock negative camber, I don't know what to think. I keep my tires inflated to specs at all times, so I've ruled that out as a culprit.

Thanks,
brad

Brad,

I have 4400 miles so I am not quite there:) But I did check my tires anyway. I did not see what you are talking about on mine. I remember your comment at the meeting and had been conscious of the road noise. Nothing different on mine except I have really noticed these tires do suck. Very slick. Did a left hand fish tail crossing traffic near SMU and looked like an idiot.

Ezchief

I need to get my cookies set up at home!

I think some people refer to it is "cupping" as well.

I have it with my Honda (slightly lowered) and my wifes Jetta (slightly lowered). It is a pain in the butt. You really need to rotate your tires frequently, etc....

But a new car that is STOCK should NOT do it, if balanced, aligned and correct tire pressure. take it to the dealer

no can do
 

"I have it with my Honda (slightly lowered) and my wifes Jetta (slightly lowered). It is a pain in the butt. You really need to rotate your tires frequently, etc...."

a hard thing to do when you have different size tires of front and rear.

I have 3900 miles
 

my tires are cupped due to taking corners hard and sharp. That is why mine are cupping

It's all them chicanes you been taking at 90mph. :p

Dangit, if camber isn't adjustable on the 350 then I'm gonna be pissed. 300's actually gain negative camber as the vehicle ages and the springs sag and the bushings wear down and there are "unorthodox" ways to correct it (i.e. STILLEN adjustable a-arms, camber plates, etc.).

But I'd think Nissan wouldn't make this mistake AGAIN. Then again, alignments aren't my forte -- is camber adjustable in other cars? I know for sure it's not on my SE-R and 300...

Michael.

Any problem pulling right
 

Brad, does your 350 pull unusal to the right? I understand that all 350s pull a litttle to the right in the right hand lane when the surface is slopped to the right, but I'm interested in any pulling to the right on flat surfaces.

My 350 has a bad right pull on all surfaces and wondering what it is doing to the tires as far as uneven wear.

No. The pull to the right is one problem I've never had. The way my tires are wearing, the track of the car is dead on and appears just to be a camber issue.

Sounds like you should take it to the dealer... if you are having problems with it, make sure they know and they find a solution!


And as far as camber adjustment, my car (3000GT VR-4) has adjustable camber on all 4 wheels. The caster, however, is not adjustable and I am having a problem with that, of course.

I have the same thing. The car started to get very noisy a few days ago, and then I started to notice a slight pulsating noise. Not really strong enough to call a vibration, but a soft pulsating. I checked the tires last night, and sure enough they have started to cup pretty bad. I called the dealer and made an appointment for next Tuesday (he said the regional tech will be there and wants to take a look).
I asked if it would be OK to keep driving it and unfortunately he said the once the tires start to wear unevenly, they will continue to do so, so there is no sense in trying to baby these tires - they are already shot. I hope I don't have to pay for new ones. Shouldn't that be covered under warranty?

I'm not fond of the tires either.

Treadwear of 180??????!?!?!?

My dad's got ZR tires on his Z32 with
treadware of 300, and they grip
the road very well.

He just bought a pair of BFGoodrich
GForce tires from www.tires.com
for under $120 each.

My tires on the '90ZTT ended up cupping up front. Due to the staggered setup for these cars the best you can do is switch the front tires(not the rims, just tires) and that'll allow you to at least run the tires till they wear out on both sides. 18 or 17"?

In my years as an anligment tech i had never seen a car that camber and toe were not adjustable. these two adjustments are wear adjustments where caster is not. i have seen cars where there was not enough adjustment available to correctly adjust camber and mods were needed.

our cars should have a 12 month 12k mile warranty on the alighment. i would contact the dealer asap about this. if the front tires are wearing poorly due to bad factory alighment then nissan owes you a new set of prorated front tires and a free alighment.

as to a lot of cars drifting to the right this may be caused by both sides having the same caster settings. the left side needs a little less caster and then the car should not drift any more.

I notice the very loud sounds from the tires you are talking about, and I'm at 5K miles. I didn't think anything of it because I had it on my last car, 97 Prelude with 215/40R17 S02s.

As long as I go over 20 mph the sound dies away.

Sorry to hear about this. I would suggest you re-mount the front tires immediately.

My S2000 did the same thing. I put up with it til the rears were shot at about 11K, then got new rears and re-mounted the fronts and the noise went away.

Re: no can do
 

Why not swap from right to left and left to right (just the tires). That ought to give time until the other side of both tires wears down, too.

I'm a little concerned with all these complaints about the factory tires. Maybe I'll ask my dealer to swap tires for me when I take delivery. I'd rather have some pretty good all-seaons...

TIRE SWAP?
 

I was thinking about that, too. Does anyone know if dealers are receptive to doing something like that?

WayneTN

OK, in my experience cupping/scalloping is never a result of bad alignment. A bad alignment ca only cause more wear, but the wear will still be even. It scares the hell out of me that an alignment shop did not know this and instead came up with the "no camber adjustment" excuse. ALL CARS HAVE ADJUSTABLE CAMBER. Anyway, I did a quick search and here is what I found:

Scalloping/Cupping

Probable Causes
- loose wheel bearings
- mismounted tire/ wheel assembly
- out of balance wheel assembly
- tread design/ tire design
- worn bearings, shocks, springs or other suspension compnents

Corrective Action
Tighten wheel bearings. Check wheel assembly for proper mounting of tire on wheel (or rim) and for proper mounting of axle. If you have many tires of the same tire brand and tread design with cupping/scallop wear, test other tire brands, tire series or tread designs. Inflate tires to standard.

And I am also tired of people saying there are something wrong with these tires. There is nothing wrong with them at all. The only place you might desire a bit better tire is on the racetrack and that is it.

Pic of situation Droidekaus is talking about
 

See attached photo below. This is of my car with 4800 miles. What droidekaus is referring to is a "beveling" of the inboard tread blocks. Note in the picture, the way the dirt from the ground marks the block in a triangular pattern rather than a rectangular pattern (as it should) on the outboard tire tread blocks. This was discussed at the Dallas Z meet organized by TXSTYLE today, and every 350Z with 4K+ miles on the OEM Bridgestones exhibited this kind of tire wear. In person, you can better appreciate this condition by running your fingers along the inner tread blocks fore-to-aft and feel the uneven wear. It is also noticeable that the inboard tread is wearing faster than the outboard tread. droid is led to believe that possibly Nissan has a camber problem with our cars. More to come with more mileage.

What exactly does the caster adjustment do?