Can a poor aligment eat up tires that fast?

The answer is absolutely YES. As some of you know I pulled an X type from the local pick and pull and have been bringing it back to life. One of the big unknowns was the alignment and since had to do ball joints I figured that it would need an alignment anyway.

But I did not have the time to get the alignment done the day I did the ball joints (I do my own alignments) so I drove the car for a week. The car was acting a little weird. It was jerking to one side or the other if I went over something slippery with one tire and the abs was kicking in at low speeds especially when turning. It was also chirping or scuffing the front tires at low speed turns (say in to a parking space)

I finally got the car on the rack this Saturday and WOW was it bad. Once I got it on the Hunter machine I was amassed to find the toe was way out. The LF was at 2.83 deg and the RF was at .87. Spec is .5 & .5 Well I guess I found the problem. I was even more amaised to find that I all but killed one of my front tires as the outer 1/4 of the tread is down to the ware bar and the other side is worn to about 5/32 even but scuffed and cupped evenly across the tread.

Got it all back to spec and there is not a huge difference in how it drives other than the above noted "signs" are now gone.

The real reason I am writing this is I was amazed in that just over 500 miles of average street driving the poor alignment in the car absolutely killed the front tires to a point where they will fail an inspection. I am really happy that I did not put on 4 new sneakers before. Instead I replaced the one tire with a shaved to math one from the tire rack for just this reason as I was unsure of the rest of the suspension and the alignment and did not want to kill an entire set.

So this coming weekend I will replace the rear bushings and then put it on the alignment machine AGAIN and hopefully that will be the end of the issue. On the good side of things even with the worn rear bushings the rear is still close to spec. There is about 1 deg more camber (total) than there should be but the toe and everything else is with in spec so changing the bushings should correct that as there is noticeable play in them.

I've seen people replace tie rods and not realign it for a week or two and destroy a new set.

Saw one a while back with 5 degrees of total toe.

Generally when it's really bad you get little flaps at the end of each tread block

Toe is a real killer. I had the same problem with my e30 - figured i'd align it once I got some suspension bits replaced, and absolutely destroyed the front tires.

Lesson learned.

When I put the coilovers in my FX16 the toe was waaaay out. The engine was screaming just to do 45 mph. I said this ain't right and pulled it into the garage and corrected it. The Jag is a much quieter car so you may not had such a drastic indicator.

Same lesson learned when the rear trailing arm bushings (RTABs in BMW-speak) blew out in my E36 -- the play in the toe while driving destroyed a set of rear tires before I even realized what the issue was.

any ttb ford with a worn front end anything will eat tires.

I think my sammy needs some new steering parts, front tires have been wearing faster than the rear lately...

I had a similar experience with a BMW e34. It drove straight, and tires wore acceptably, but all the front end bushings were bad. I replaced all the bushings and tie rod ends. It drove frighteningly bad, it seems the previous owner must have had it aligned on all bad bushings in the front end, with all new parts it was way out. I then did the best tape measure and eyeball alignment I could do. It drove straight, felt OK, except on wet or slippery surfaces, where it felt nervous. Ruined a pair of (admittedly cheap) Falken tires in a week.

I was pretty disappointed in myself, I've always had good success with DIY eyeball and tape measure alignment in the past.

Lots of camber will result in uniform wear - If the car is only driven on a race track. A track alignment on a street car will result in lots of inside wear and a short tire lifespan by street car standards. Track people who discard tires which are heat cycled out with rubber remaining won't care.

But aggressive amounts of toe chew up tires at a crazy rate.

My M3 e36 is aligned w/ -3.2F - -2.1 degrees camber and zero toe F, 1/16"/side R. Tire wear isn't bad at all.

motomoron wrote: Lots of camber will result in uniform wear - *If the car is only driven on a race track*. A track alignment on a street car will result in lots of inside wear and a short tire lifespan by street car standards.

I'm going to politely and respectfully disagree with this. I had 2 street-driven Neons that never even saw an autocross cone, let alone track time. Both were on stock suspension bits. When I went from approximately zero camber (spec) to -2.0d in the front, not only did they handle better, but tire wear evened out and improved to the point that I never bothered to rotate tires from front to back.

I ran zero toe at both ends, though.

Many stock alignments call for 1.5 neg. +-.

Duke wrote: I'm going to politely and respectfully disagree with this. I had 2 street-driven Neons that never even saw an autocross cone, let alone track time. Both were on stock suspension bits. When I went from approximately zero camber (spec) to -2.0d in the front, not only did they handle better, but tire wear evened out and improved to the point that I never bothered to rotate tires from front to back.

That depends on your definition of "a lot". :)

3.5 degrees of negative camber and zero toe did this in street-only driving, it ran on A6s when autoxing. The Miata did this, after I took them off I just put the wheels on the Seven to roll it up and down the driveway. You can't see it in the photos, but they're corded on the inside edge and have about half tread on the outside. This was something like 5K miles, toe eats tires a lot faster than camber does.

Preach it brother.

Same thing on my 320i when I rebuilt the front end. Eyeball/quick measurement, drove straight, figured I'd get it aligned "shortly". Wow did it chew up the outside edges in nothing flat.

MrChaos wrote: any ttb ford will eat tires.

FTFY

GameboyRMH wrote: I think my sammy needs some new steering parts, front tires have been wearing faster than the rear lately...

Update: Just confirmed that the rod end that's built into the drag link is worn the hell out, but the ones at the ends of the tie rod still seem OK.

Opti wrote: Generally when it's really bad you get little flaps at the end of each tread block

If you get those it is usually the side of the car that is pushing back against the side that is way out of toe.

I had them on the "good" side of my car.

GameboyRMH wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote: I think my sammy needs some new steering parts, front tires have been wearing faster than the rear lately...

Update: Just confirmed that the rod end that's built into the drag link is worn the hell out, but the ones at the ends of the tie rod still seem OK.

High steer upgrade time!

A big bonus to thus is that after the alignment the car is now getting about 60 more mikes out of a tank of gas. It may actually be closer to 80 as I have not finished the tank yet