I am having problems with excess tire wear. On the front axle, the wear is concentrated on the inner 1/3 of the tread face and the tires seem to be angled like so (/---\) when viewed from in front of the car. Is this a problem with an excessive factory camber setting being used on these cars?? For anyone with a service manual, what are the stock settings with regards to camber and toe in/out for both the front and rear axle? Anyone notice a similar problem? Tire pressures are fine and are checked often and the car has not been in any accidents. It seems as though they wear very unevenly and are costing me every time they need replacing. I believe I could get better life from my tires with a different than stock setting that spread the weight distirbution of the car more evenly across the entire face of the tread (ie. less negative camber combined with less toe out on frt. axle). Thanks for any input.
It seems to me that as an afront for safety, the front axle is given excess toe out as well, which is causing the tires to scrub away from each other such as (\---/) as viewed from above the car. Hope my depictions and story help with solving my problem.
FWIW, I've went through 3 pairs of tires in the last year and a half and they get rotated too. The front axle I find to be particularly hard on tires, which I guess is common for FWD vehicles and their heavy frt. weight bias but not this bad. This is an 04 Sunfire w/ 2.2L and automatic if it matters. Thanks..sorry for the length.
Anyone else experience this problem?? Any advice is appreciated.
Have you ever had it aligned? If you are scrubbing through tires like that, then you without a doubt need to get an alignment. If it has been this way since the day you picked it up brand new, then take it back to the dealership and have them fix it. If it gradually has gotten worse, then you probably have a failing part somewhere in the front end.
The only way I can tell which tires have been on the front of my cav is by the amount of tread left. The fronts wear a tad faster than the rears, but they still wear evenly.
I don't follow "(/---\)" is that one tire? or is that the whole front end two tires (with the dashes being the 'axle')
because if it is one tire, with a highspot in the center and most wear on outside, you could be low on tire pressure?
If there are random bald spots in the tire its probably from a bad balance.
Sounds to me like you have very bad toe out condtiions.
Have you done any suspension work? I'm not sure how replacement struts come but on most GM's they are slotted to allow camber adjustment. If that is the case and you have gotten ANY kind of work done requiring loosening the 2 lower bolts on the strut then your camber is probably out.
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Redzed99 wrote:I don't follow "(/---\)" is that one tire? or is that the whole front end two tires (with the dashes being the 'axle')
because if it is one tire, with a highspot in the center and most wear on outside, you could be low on tire pressure?
The little pictogram I provided is of the whole front end with the dashes representing the axle and the two semi-upright lines representing camber angle of the tires. Hope that helps you to give a better opinion on it..
And no, the car has never had an alignment, and this wear pattern is evenly uneven for lack of a better term on both tires on the front axle.
cavmania wrote:If there are random bald spots in the tire its probably from a bad balance.
Sounds to me like you have very bad toe out condtiions.
Have you done any suspension work? I'm not sure how replacement struts come but on most GM's they are slotted to allow camber adjustment. If that is the case and you have gotten ANY kind of work done requiring loosening the 2 lower bolts on the strut then your camber is probably out.
Um, its not a tire balance issue as the tires roll without any noticeable vibration on the hwy. So, you think it due to excess toe out? And no, there's been no susp. work done on it. I'll look into it..thanks.
