front tires worn

[stevengerard]

Wow, even though I had Carfixer's alignment "supposedly" done to my car by a local Firestone my front tires look like I was driving on the inner sidewalls from day one. They lasted 5 years but only about 27.5k miles. Its unbelievable how badly warn the inside edges are - right through to the cords yet there is plenty of tread left on top — probably still 50% tread life. Oh well, time to look for some tires. Two shops I stopped at today had nothing in stock for the car - so I figured I'd take the time to do some searching on here for the latest choices. Always something.

[mm svt]

You don’t think the ball joints may be bad? It’s a A arm ball joint item not hard to do but some parts are cheap and wear fast.

[stevengerard]

I thought of that, a little loose but they didn't seem that bad.

[FordNut]

I'll bet they didn't really align it to the requested specs.

[fastblackmerc]

I'll bet they didn't really align it to the requested specs.

+1.....

If I'm going to a new shop I print out the specs and the reasoning behind the change. The guy I use now aligned it to the factory specs and drove it, then aligned to Carfixer's spec's and drove it. He liked Carfixer's spec's better.

TIP - Ask for a printout of the alignment before & after.

[mm svt]

I thought of that, a little loose but they didn't seem that bad.

A little lose, is worn out. If you can move it a little, the car can move it more.

[stevengerard]

^ yeah, I thought the same. I could barely move it but figured if even a bit, more was wrong. I'm guessing it was a combo of a not so good alignment and 110k miles of front end wear.

[Curless]

I'm dealing with the same thing. I don't have an alignment rack at my shop but use a very good shop... and have for years. But my tires are F'd up so badly on the inside....

[Svashtar]

Just replaced my fronts as well, same thing. 30,000 mile rated Nittos and I got barely 25k out of them. The tire centers had that extra 5k in them, but the inside drivers front was wiped out down to the steel showing.

The wear was worse on the drivers side, but shop swears they aligned it to my specs, and since the passenger side was not as bad I figure I just whacked a pothole or something.

Going forward the shop offered to check and verify my alignment for a modest fee every 10k miles, which is a good idea.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mm svt]

When you replace your A arms, I would not use Moog. They didn’t last and wasted the NT05R. We did however put the Moogs on just for Gingerman and did three sessions with the Designated class before we got concerned about brake fire they were so hot. On the way home the front end was loose. The ball joints were shot too.

[ByronRACE]

I'm at just over 200K miles and have done everything imaginable; including aligning with much more positive camber than recommended to correct the inside tire wear. Nothing helps. Not carfixers specs, not new ball joints, not my specs...not tires...and not custom front end suspension parts built to a race shops specs to further move the camber in an attempt to fix it. Nothing works to fix tire wear; the camber just made it handle worse and the tire wear was the same.

The biggest impact; tire pressure. Running the front tires at 40-44psi helps.

Second biggest impact, rotate often. I run the same size front and rear and rotate front to rear every other oil change, then cross rotate at mid life; which is typically around 15K miles.

The car still wears fronts; I can't fix it...and I've given up. Air pressure and rotate, and new tires when bald...that's my solution. Tried everything else.

[stevengerard]

I do over-inflate the fronts but have TC so I prefer to have the backs the larger size. I'm just bummed that the tires wore out so fast, from the looks of it they were bad 5k - 7.5k miles ago. Seems like lots of front tire choices, few back tire choices. I'll get a new set of fronts and then later move up to the Nitto 265/55/18 for the back.

What I really need is a good set of snow tires - YUK!!! Whish I could put this car away for the winter. One of these years.

[stevengerard]

so, seeing how many of us still have this issue are we better off just buying cheaper fro tires or still spend a bit more on a quality tire. I feel for all the work the front's do I might as well splurge and buy a decent tire for safety sake.

[sailsmen]

Previous Fronts 32K and current set 28K. May get another 10K on them.

[ByronRACE]

I spoke with another Marauder owner that had severe (10K mi and bald inside) tire wear and after a long discussion, he discovered that he was missing the factory installed plastic spring spacers that stacks above the coil spring. If the front struts are ever changed, it would be easy to forget to reinstall this part. If you're destroying the insides badly, you may want to check for the presence of this spacer. Without it, the front end will sit lower, and the camber should be more negative, which would wear the inside. It may also alter the toe a bit. If the spacers were missing when an alignment was performed, it may not be possible to dial it in to the proper camber numbers due to lack of range available on the adjuster.