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Extreme tire wear on front right

1K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Madmonkfish 
#1 ·
Went to change the deflection on headlights last night (going to France for a couple of weeks with the car :) ) and noticed that the outer edge of my right front tire has worn excessively (relatively new tires, and certainly no unusual wear pattern when I bought the car 2500 miles ago).

Annoying timing as I'm about to put another 2000 miles on it and don't plan on spending holiday taking it to a garage!

I'm assuming its either
a) an alignment issue
b) worn suspension bushings

Anything else I should get looked at?

(to compound things, my wife scraped a white van's bumper driving into work today as well. Absolute minimal damage, but white van drivers have a tendancy to rather flout the law with attempts at insurance claims. Hohum :( )
 
#2 ·
Dont feel too bad Monk. My wife was driving our 6 VERT yesterday, didnt see a pot hole, hit it at full speed destroying one of the expensive rims. We have wheel insurance, however in the mean time, my X5 is having a wheel replaced due to two cracks. We are driving the X5 to Atlanta, so I understand exactly what you are going through and feel your pain.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Very likely an alignment or worn suspension bushings.

I would check the alignment first and make sure they print out before and after numbers. Ask for the report before you let them have the car.
1) If you see the car was way out of spec before the alignment then you know that was the problem.
2) If the alignment seemed very close to spec before and after then I would start checking the bushings.
3) If the numbers looks out of spec even after the alignment then I would start looking for damaged suspension or wheels. You can bend control arms / thrust arms or even the strut which usually shows up as an inability to align the car to spec.

Alignment reports can be a bit complicated to read. Concentrate on the toe values since they affect tire wear the most. Really bad camber will cause a slight increase in wear but not heavy wear like you are experiencing. Reports typically have a before number, a "spec" number, an allowable +/- from spec, and an after number.

To be safe I would ask the mechanic to explain the report to you. You can also scan it and post it up here on the forum if you want feedback.

Example:
Front Left Toe
Before: - 0.2
After/Actual: 0.1
Spec: 0.05
Allowable Range: 0.1

In this example the allowable range is -0.05 to 0.15 > [ (0.05 - 0.1) to (0.05 + 0.1) ]
The car came in at -0.2 which it too much toe-out (causes inner edge tire wear)
 
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