Uneven tire wear - how much is too much

"Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen" (distraxi) 09/01/2020 at 19:03 • Filed to: None

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Guy at work just had new tires fitted on his GTI and the shop told him he needed an alignment due to uneven tire wear. As it happens, I’d had a look at his tires a few days earlier when we were discussing what he’d replace them with, and while they were uneven, it didn’t look too bad to me: down to the wear bars across most of the width, with the inner edges of all 4 close to out of tread, so maybe 1-1.5mm more worn than the rest of the width. That struck me as just being symptomatic of a car with a bit of negative camber stock that does a lot of freeway work.

What do you reckon - how uneven is too uneven? We re the shop making a legit recommendation or  just drumming up business?

Tripper > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 09/01/2020 at 19:15

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I always have a car aligned along w new tires.

Sovande > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 09/01/2020 at 19:21

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If he needs tires anyway, the $150 or so for an alignment is certainly worth it. I'll be doing the same in a week or so. 

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 09/01/2020 at 19:32

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This is too much

https://oppositelock.kinja.com/after-92-autox-runs-and-1-track-day-1844889980

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Sovande 09/01/2020 at 19:38

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I’m a buck each way on routine alignments. My experience (f ro m having once upon a time been a suspension engineer) is that it doesn’t drift that much on relatively new cars after the initial settl i ng in: - it’s either right, or you’ve hit something and it’s well out. It’s only once bushes etc start to wear out that al ignment needs routine correction. And given that a lot of tir e shops are basically staffed by untrained idiots, I tend to think that for a newer car th e cha n ces of them mak ing matters worse are as high as of improving things, unless there’s actual cause to suspect a real problem. In which case I’m more like l y to go to a specialist alignm ent shop who know what they’re doin g anyway. But that’s just me.

In this instance though I’m more curious as to whether people think the guy actually has a real problem or whether the shop in question is just BS’ ing to upsell . Like I say, the uneven wear d idn’t look seriou s to me.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability 09/01/2020 at 19:40

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No, that’s just right and proper.

notsomethingstructural > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 09/01/2020 at 20:05

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Tire warranties suck but if you don’t get it aligned right off the bat that’s it you get a  zero mile warranty

Sovande > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 09/01/2020 at 20:28

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I’m having the tires put on the wheels at the place I use and then putting them myself. Then I’m driving it to the dealership and having an alignment done.

In response to the question, I’m sure he’s trying to sell a service, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about needing it. If there is uneven wear that you can see then it can’t hurt to have it aligned at the shop of your choice.