by "Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
Published 11/30/2017 at 22:05
by "Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
Published 11/30/2017 at 22:05
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STARS: 2
Finally I got around to putting my Miata on a lift today to do an oil change after my 4000 mile cross country drive. While in the air, I was doing my usual check of everything else and to my dismay I found my tires looking like this! I was on a drive up lift so I had to take it down and use a floor jack to get the tires off. But when I did and got this closer look, I discovered how bad it really was. The inner edge of all four tires is corded almost all the way around. And I’ve been driving HARD like this for a bit of time by the looks of it.. So clearly my alignment is borked and now I’m in need of tires and an alignment. At least all four are evenly fucked so I probably don’t have anything else wrong. Ideally I need the toe fixed and then all should be fine. There is a bit of uneven Camber wear too but that just means I did too much highway driving. This is the alignment settings I gave the shop about 30k miles ago:
Front
Caster: 5.0 degrees
Camber: 1.0 degrees negative
Toe-in: 1/16", 0.15° or 9 arcminutes total (1/32", 0.075° or 4.5 minutes per side)
Rear
Camber: 1.5 degrees negative
Toe-in: 1/16", 0.15° or 9 arcminutes total (1/32", 0.075° or 4.5 minutes per side)
But considering the amount of pot holes I have hit, I wouldn’t be surprised if that has knocked it out a bit. It was tracking straight still, not pulling in any particular direction but that doesn’t mean all is well. Obviously as evident by the tires, I will not be driving the car until I order some tires and get the alignment fixed.
I can’t believe I was stupid enough to drive around like this for any amount of time though. I’ve got to watch tire wear more carefully. It’s dangerous doing the sort of high intensity Canyon driving with tires like that. But at least I had good fun with these and made it around 30k over 2 years on a summer tire. I only autocrossed these once but they saw plenty of abuse at the dragon (two years in a row), and all of the other driving and cross country adventure.
"AestheticsInMotion" (aestheticsinmotion)
11/30/2017 at 22:18, STARS: 1
I’m saving this picture to compare to my tires once they come off. I’m scared to even see the rears....
Also, did you decide what tires to get for the Miata yet?
"benjrblant" (benjblant)
11/30/2017 at 22:19, STARS: 2
I dunno, if you turn the tire 180 degrees on the rim and mount it inside out, there’s still quite a few good mm of rubber on there.
"Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap" (ddadragon)
11/30/2017 at 22:25, STARS: 1
Hahaha. I think you’re joking but people actually do that.
"benjrblant" (benjblant)
11/30/2017 at 22:27, STARS: 0
Yikes. So sketch...
"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
11/30/2017 at 22:31, STARS: 0
Right now I’m thinking Star Specs for the Miata and Falken Eurowinters for the snow tires on the Subaru.
"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
11/30/2017 at 22:32, STARS: 0
I mean I would probably rather have the rubber on the outside anyways. The inner edge I don’t really need lol. It just is a high risk of the damn thing blowing out.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
11/30/2017 at 22:42, STARS: 0
Yipes! Glad you’re caught it!
"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
11/30/2017 at 22:55, STARS: 2
Well yeah, otherwise I would have found out via a tire blowing out and probably testing my roll bar while falling off a cliff.
"Highlander-Datsuns are Forever" (jamesbowland)
11/30/2017 at 23:37, STARS: 1
I’ve had my tires almost this bad on my impreza. It was like one day they were fine, then after a 2,000 mile road trip fully loaded down the inside edges particularly on the rears were totally bald. So I figured out that the car squats when loaded down and it caused premature tire wear on the inside edges.
"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
12/01/2017 at 00:47, STARS: 0
Hmm I wonder if that is a shock issue. Or just exceeding the load limits for the car. I imagine transporting my autocross wheels on the back of the car repeatedly wasn’t a good thing. And then my 4000 mile road trip had quite a lot of shit on there too. So I definitely need way less toe to help with that
"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
12/01/2017 at 05:34, STARS: 1
they’re fine!
;)
"ateamfan42" (ateamfan42)
12/01/2017 at 08:38, STARS: 2
Front
Caster: 5.0 degrees
Camber: 1.0 degrees negative
Toe-in: 1/16", 0.15° or 9 arcminutes total (1/32", 0.075° or 4.5 minutes per side)
Rear
Camber: 1.5 degrees negative
Toe-in: 1/16", 0.15° or 9 arcminutes total (1/32", 0.075° or 4.5 minutes per side)
That is pretty much what I have on my car as a starter alignment (until the suspension is upgraded). I wear the outside edges of my tires (especially in AutoX), so I need more negative camber.
The wear you’ve got is consistent with either a whole lot more negative camber than your specs, or somewhat more negative camber combined with some bad toe. I’m going to guess the alignment eccentrics may have slipped since the alignment, reducing the camber and screwing up the toe in the process.
Those eccentric bolts are known to slip on some cars, especially when driven hard. When I put in my coilovers, I’m going to add some Paco eccentric locks to mitigate this.