HELP Suspension and Tire Wear issues

[Sick A4]

Just realised the inner tread portion of my tires are GONE..!!! Belts are showing through and everything. VERY disappointing to say the least.
Does anyone know of a good / compitent suspension or alignment specialist that would know our cars inside and out in the Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley, or Riverside area..?

HISTORY:
I have a 06 A4 quattro sitting on 235 / 35 / 19 Toyo TR1 Proxies with 40 psi tire pressure. Suspension set-up is Bilstein Shocks and Neuspeed Springs installed by a shop that deals exclusively in German cars (doesn't mean they're compitent). Since the suspension and tires have been done, I've driven 20K miles and some change. But I've also had 2 wheel alignments done as well by two different shops.

90% of my driving is highway and I don't drive my car hard, race through speed bump or pot holes, or take turns doing 90 mph. I would say that i have more than 60% of my tire tread left with the exception of the inside 1 1/2 in. of the tire which is completely gone (Front and Rear).

So whats wrong....? Tires not balanced, Tire Pressure, suspension installed wrong, suspension parts not right for car, obviously my alignment is &*^$#@%..! Does anyone have suggestions or ideas.....? Has anyone had this problem and how did you fix it...? Can it be fixed or will I have to buy $800 worth of tires every 20k miles..?

[teamBOB]

its called negative camber. it happens because the car is lowered from its stock suspension geometry. only way to fix it? a camber kit. but i dont even know if they make that for a4's. lol. and on top of that, T1R's and most all other summer performance tires have a lot shorter tread wear compared to "regular" all-season tires.

i personally dont care for camber kits.

[Sick A4]

Yeah.. I've learned a lot in the past three days about our cars and the tires and suspensions we put on them.

A) These soft compound 280 rated tires like the T1R Proxxies only have a 20K-25K life span if put them on a lowered german car with no camber kit.

B) oh yeah.. no camber kits available for our B7 Audis

C) no way to adjust front or rear "Camber" on our cars period. Unless through extensive mods.

D) I've been told by several people that by adjusting your "Toe" angle to be a little more positive than factory specs.. this weill help sumwhat on the camber.

E) And finally from the so called alignment expert that did my car today... " You need to PAY to PLAY with these cars... Just expect to shall out $$$ every 20K or so but man.. YOUR CAR HANDLES GOOD..!!!!!"

[B6driver]

i believe b6s have camber kits out there.. and those MIGHT fit on b7s

[vwong]

B) oh yeah.. no camber kits available for our B7 Audis

C) no way to adjust front or rear "Camber" on our cars period. Unless through extensive mods.

D) I've been told by several people that by adjusting your "Toe" angle to be a little more positive than factory specs.. this weill help sumwhat on the camber.


B) There is a company who makes front adj. upper control arms for the B6. B7 shares the same UCAs as the B6. I don't remember the company's name, I have their website bookmarked at my computer at home, I'll find it and post it up here.

C) There is adj. from the factory for the rear, just not the front.

D) The factory specs call out for some toe-in for all four corners. I went to an alignment place and requested them to set all four corners at zero toe, but they refused because it would be out of factory specs. I went home and re-aligned my car by myself. Fuck those alignment places. From now on, I'm doing my own alignment. I set my toe at zero on all four corners. Since the front camber can't be adj. from the factory, I left them at where they are (which were about -1.75 degrees). I adj. the rear camber to -2.0 degrees. BTW, I've put at least 15k miles on my 235/35/19 tires (also Toyo T1R), and I still have plenty of treads left.

Oh, one more tip. I rotated my tires front to back, back to front at the 5k-mile mark. Then I cross-rotated them again at 10k-mile mark. Do the same rotations at 15k- and 20k-mile marks. You have to take the wheels/tires to a tire place for the cross-rotation. That means it'll cost you to cross-rotate the tires, but the tires will last longer.

[vwong]

Just checked my favorites. The company that makes (or should I say "made") the adj. UCAs was Custom Performance. Their website no longer exists, so I guess then there is no front camber kit available. [:(]

[audib7a4]

20k miles is actually pretty good...

[Sick A4]

Yeah... Rotating tires... now why didn't I think of that...! LOL... thanks guys.