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Expensive performance tires seem to be more prone to this. The lower profile tires are perhaps more vulnerable.
I am starting to suspect that the differences in the camber between the front and back axles may also be a strong contributor to this. if this is so, then the more frequent the tire totation, the better.
I have also seen a pattern were independant rear suspentions are worse for this compared to solid or semi-live twist beam axles.
I do prefer very small to perhaps zero toe-in on the front axle. This allows for much better control on ice when a factory spec toe-in can only let one front wheel track on ice at a time. Everything else being equal, with lower profile tires and higher pressures, toe-in and camber can be reduced to get the same effects. When rolling the effects toe-in angles are largely lost in the defections of the tire carcass and rubber bushings, as they should. So with an Abbott VRK on a 9-3 or urethane bushings on a 9-5, if the toe-in and camber are not changed, then the running forces on the tread patch will be greatly increased. When I changed from 14" to 16" wheels on our Passat TDI, I had to get quite insistant with the suspension mechanic that the factory specs were for factory wheels and tires and that these were the wrong way to set the suspension up. We got close to zero toe-in and -.5 on the camber and got the camber really close to identical on both sides and you can take your hands off the steering wheel and the vehicle tracks straight for a long time. If you have a vehicle that pulls to one side, you should not be surprised if the tire wear looks odd in the long run.
But, I sam tarting to think that there is nothing that can be done to avoid performance tires from getting noisy wear patterns after two years. I think that folks who wear out tires quite fast don't have this problem, just major tire costs.
posted by 65.68.1...
, Fri, 29 Nov 2002 21:34:39
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