Accelerated Tire Wear - Passenger Rear

[B6A4Dave]

Over the past 80k miles or so I've found that my car seems to chew through passenger rear tires at an accelerated rate by comparison to the other 3.

Suspension is stock Sport suspension, B7 A4 rear brakes, B5 S4 fronts, Tire pressure checked bi-weekly (colorado likes to fluctuation temperature a lot) mostly highway miles.


Curious as to see if anyone else has this issue?

The tire wears evenly across the tire, no sign of camber or toe wear, or over inflation wear. I run my tires at about 33psi.

Will post tread depths and pics when its not bloody snowing..

[old guy]

I have to ask the obvious. Have you checked the alignment?

[B6A4Dave]

I haven't had an alignment done in a while as the car tracks straight. However I do notice it seems to want to rotate around a central axis sometimes in poor weather.

Its like if I had a square on a ball joint right about where the trans is, the car feels like it undulates and tries to pivot around that point sometimes.

I'm going to get it checked tomorrow though just to see wtf.

[B6A4Dave]

@Old Guy

Here Fletcher! Results of the laser rack today.

[old guy]

Good thing you got it done. That rear toe was scrubbing the hell out of your tires

[B6A4Dave]

Good thing you got it done. That rear toe was scrubbing the hell out of your tires

For some reason the alignment guy told me that he couldn't adjust my front camber and asked about how old my struts were... reason?

Unfortunately I smoked through a set of Pirelli's before I got the issue fixed.. Time to throw away 3 perfectly good tires because they have to match...yay AWD...booo AWD..

[happy2B5]

Without adjustable upper control arms, front camber/ caster isn't adjustable. An experienced shop can get the cross camber to 0 by shifting the subframe slightly. Yours was pretty dead on anyway.

Any reason they didn't adjust rear camber? The rear was / is still a little more off but still not unreasonable.

I may have asked for the front and rear toe to be closer to 0 all around but you should see better wear afrer this.

[jjvwg]

For some reason the alignment guy told me that he couldn't adjust my front camber and asked about how old my struts were... reason?

Unfortunately I smoked through a set of Pirelli's before I got the issue fixed.. Time to throw away 3 perfectly good tires because they have to match...yay AWD...booo AWD..

save the 3, find a tire with similar wear on craiglist

[Kevin C]

save the 3, find a tire with similar wear on craiglist

Or get the fourth tire shaved to match.

[B6A4Dave]

Without adjustable upper control arms, front camber/ caster isn't adjustable. An experienced shop can get the cross camber to 0 by shifting the subframe slightly. Yours was pretty dead on anyway.

Any reason they didn't adjust rear camber? The rear was / is still a little more off but still not unreasonable.

I may have asked for the front and rear toe to be closer to 0 all around but you should see better wear afrer this.

Do you think I should go back and ask them to redo it to set them all closer? what would you suggest for alignment specs?

Note: they did it for $60 out the door on a laser rack in like 45m

save the 3, find a tire with similar wear on craiglist

Touche!

Or get the fourth tire shaved to match.

You can do that?!?!?!?! I've never heard of that..

[old guy]

As Happy pointed out the front camber isn't adjustable. As the front gets lower the camber increases. as long as it is centered it really isn't an issue. Yours is centered.

I think your rear settings look fine. If you want to tweak your rear camber on the left side a little you can do it yourself. All you need is a framing square and an angle calculator. Here's a DIY that explains the mechanics of the adjustment. Clicky click®

As to the toe settings: I have found that running the factory specs in the rear and close to zero in the front works best for tire life. Now that you have a known starting point you can set your front toe yourself. Here's my recommendations for alignment settings. Depending upon your FTG height you may not want to do the full raised toe adjustment. Clicky click®

[GrapeBandit]

im pretty sure its safe to run 3 used tires and one new that are all the same size and brand

[walky_talky20]

Just to comment - at our shop we have seen that on the B6 chassis, excess wear on the right rear tire is somewhat common. In this case, the rear toe was certainly to blame.

I agree, if the remaining 3 tires are at least half tread, throwing 1 new tire in the mix is just fine.

If you really want the tires to last, decreasing toe will help. If it were mine, I'd probably set the rear to .2 degrees total and the front to .1 degrees total.

[happy2B5]

I am going through the nerves of an alignment today. Will see what the results are. Fingers crossed. Wish I could have walky_talky align it.

My local shop told me front toe was pretty off, not rear per say. Yet I still had premature wear on rears. Front tires looked good when rotated. Any insight as to why this was case?

[walky_talky20]

Wish I could have walky_talky align it.

I heard that guy isn't even a mechanic. He just peppers his posts with phrases like "at our shop" or "that's pretty common on the __ chassis" to make people think otherwise. Lies, I tell you.

Full Disclosure: Father owns reputable import repair shop. Son is an IT guy and hangs out at shop on days off. He also hangs out on AZ far too much. ;)

Takeway: You should be wanting Fletcher to align your car. Fletcher knows his maths and such.

[happy2B5]

Fair enough...just want someone competent and takes pride in doing a good job. Hard to come by these days. Spent far too much $$$ on shit work. Frustrating