Tire Question

I would get an alignment and new tires.

 

Not uncommon for cars with higher degrees of negative camber to wear the inside edge of the tire more than the outside; that’s par for the course. That set-up typically provides more front-end grip too.
I’m not a tire guy Mike, but a quick scan of Tire Rack dot com finds that just about any rotation pattern goes these days.
Obviously your tire’s inside sidewall will become the outside sidewall in your plan, so hopefully you haven’t been hiding some obscure brand of tire named after a mythical dragon with that name in 4” raised white letters.

 

If you can find a good twisty road that you can regularly drive flat out on you'll wear the outer edges faster than the inner. AMHIK

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One issue to consider is the age of the tire. Older tires can rip at the bead when you pull it off the rim and reinstall. Can be difficult for the tire guy to avoid it.

You might be fine, of course.

 

Mike-
Technically if the tires are directional, you can re-mount the tires to the opposite of the car/same axel to achieve your objective.
If the tires are of a Symmetric design, then you're stuck with the same side of the tires having to be on the "outside" i.e. you can rotate, but doesn't help your objective.
Since your tires are only years old and 2,500 miles, your plan is sound. If it were me, with tire technology continuously advancing, and that I'm always looking an excuse to buy new tires (and dismounting to repair a wheel anyway), then I'd consider getting a new set of tires all the way around. But that's just me...
v/r Paul

 

Huh, have never seen that before Paul...is that the front or rear and how much negative camber are you running?

 

The car needs a 4 wheel alignment, Ferrari South Bay did mine for 300.00 Well worth it, ask for Chris in service , hes very good. Your tires should never wear out like that, mine didnt , and thats before I had the 4 wheel alignment.

Thank you

PS. I would go with Continental Extreme Contact Patch rubber, insane tires for the price, I paid under 1000.00 for a complete set. 235 45 17 in the front, 255 45 17 in the rears. Next time I will go with 245s in the front, I went with the rec from the fellow I bought the Compos from, and I now see that I can go up to 245s in the front on the 8 inch rim.

 

Those were the front tires. Perhaps the situation had something to do with it. The car was used almost exclusively for a 72 mile round trip to my hangar and back nearly every weekend (sometimes twice) It's a back road route that has very few straight sections in it that can be run at 60-100 mph when nobody else is on it. So I'd guess that probably 75-80% of the 15k miles that were on the tires when I took that picture were on that route or other roads like it. My car has very little primary highway or freeway cruising on it, at least not since I've been the owner. So I just assumed it was due to all of the intense cornering. The rears were okay when I changed them.

 

You might consider raising front tire pressure to reduce roll-over onto the outside edge. Tire temperature should be uniform across the contact patch.

 

A good thought as under-inflation tends to put more stress on the edges of the tread/shoulders anyway...even when driving straight ahead. One other thought is that if that wear was just from cornering forces, I’d expect the rears to show as much if not more wear since they’re carrying more weight than the fronts.
In any case, sounds you’ve had a hoot wearing them out and I’m super-jealous; we always have a hike to get out to the twisties and they’re rarely empty....

 

Apologies, I screwed up earlier... this should have read: If the tires are of an Asymmetric design, then you're stuck with the same side of the tires having to be on the outside.

 

The tires should not wear like that no matter how many corners you take, or the speed that you take them, its that simple. Under inflation is the easiest issue to check. Like I said before, a 4 wheel alignment is in order, if that does not fix it, then its a suspension issue. With that being said, my suspension was working perfectly right up to the point when I rebuilt it, other than the motor mounts, which if worn out, will cause the car to have other issues, my tires always wore fine, even with the worn out motor mounts. I also did the upper and lower ball joints and the top shock bushings as well. That is some serious bad wear going on, if its air pressure, it would have to be so low that the car would corner like a tractor, and you would have certainly noticed it . The 308s / 328s have excellent feedback and will surely let you know if any of the tires are under or over inflated.For cars that are 30-40 years old, and with the 60/40 % difference in the rear to front balance, , and with 17s you have , these cars when you think about it, were so good at handling even by todays standards. These cars have pretty flat handling going around corners, once you set up , slow on the entrance and then accelerate through the apex , things feel really good through the steering wheel. and the car seems to suck down on the tarmac and levels flat around the corner. Its a fantastic feel, and the main reason why I will never ever give this car up .

Thank you

 

Back in the 1980s, I would wear out the stock XWX (?) Michelins in about 8000 miles just doing SoCal freeway on and off ramps several times a week at a "proper" speed, when i was able to do so.. They wore uniformly, though, no excessive edge wear.

Doug

 

I agree gino. I'd say it's most likely as Brian A suggested, a case of underinflation. I had an air chuck with a built in dial gauge that I had dropped once (okay, maybe twice) and it turned out that it had gotten knocked out of calibration. The dial face had actually come loose and turned. That's been replaced along with the tires and I'm a bit less lax with keeping an eye on the pressures now with a better chuck and independent gauge for cross check so we'll see how it pans out.

 

Never trust cheap gauges.
I have a "good" dial gauge that is +/- 1 % (it cost some money). It correlates extremely well with the TPMS sensors/dash read out in the C7 Z06, as in exactly.

What is interesting is so called better quality tire fillers with either integral plunger gauge, or dial gauge are off from it, sometimes by up to 10 PSIG, and same with those inexpensive service station type give away plunger gauges like you get in goodie bags at car shows , some are accurate, some vary several PSIG from each other.

Doug

 

Well to be fair and honest my cheap gauge was pretty accurate, at least enough for airing up street tires - until I dropped it.

 

Mike
I generally find most alignment shops put way to much toe in which will cause the inside edges of the tires to scrub. I do my own toe using pvc pipe and string setting total toe at 60 thou. I also am very careful to insure the tie rods are equal length to minimize bump steer. Of course to much camber will also wear the edges. My GTS is lowered a couple of inches (front) and required a camber adjustment. I have driven it 10k miles in the last couple of years with no apricable tire ware.

Barry

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@miketuason Now that a couple of peeps resurrected your thread... what did you end up doing about the tires?