Inside Tyre Wear

[Doug_MPS6]

Rotating doesn't fix the inside (or any unusual) wear, just makes sure all the tyres get a proportion of the wear that is being experienced, regardless of the cause. I get mine rotated and balanced every service. Inside wear is an alignment and/or set-up issue primarily. Have you belted any kerbs and did you get it checked on a decent aligner?

[lup15]

i know rotating wont fix the wear problem, just saying it will help extend the life of the tyres. you pay a price for the better cornering abilities that neg camber brings. rotating the tyres also doesn't work when you have asymmetrical tyres as the inside of the them always stay on the inside..

also having excessive wear like that would suggest you are spinning the tyres. you may want to decrease the mount of camber or change your driving style if you don't want it to keep happening

[nzjase]

I'm at 16,000km on a Gen 2 and the last service I was told to get an alignment because they discovered the tires were wearing on the insides too.
They were rotated front to back on the first service (9000km) so the inside edges on fronts and back are equally wearing on the insides.

i took it to a specialist alignment place in town, and he discovered..
-2.2 degrees negative on the back
-1.2 degrees on the front.

He managed to massage the back to -2.1 degrees & the front to -.94 degrees...
But he still said this is way too much negative camber, and exactly why the tires are wearing out so much.

He is getting back to me with a solution --> a concentric bolt modification to give some adjustment. I will run any mods past Mazda to protect my warranty, but I also want to protect my Tires!!

He's writing a report explaining that this amount of camber is rediculous on a new car with factory suspension setup, and I'm going to take it to my dealer to see what they have to say.

[Lardman]

Just make sure you don't get any old stock of the Australian Manufactured ones.... Especially if you intend on doing track work.

they don't make them in Aus anymore. so, just worry about old stock.

[lup15]

woah, -2 camber

thats like racing specs ....

[Leelu]

I have just encountered this issue. Picked up a screw in the LH rear tyre yesterday. Stopped into Tyres and More out at Coopers Plains and got it checked out, tyre was punctured so they repaired it. They also had some other advice for me....

Basically my LH rear tyre is illegal, and the other 3 tyres aren't far behind! When purchasing this car, I certainly didn't think I would be up for new tyres at just under 19,000km considering it's an everyday run around with a couple of cruises thrown in here and there and I have rotated the tyres 4 times and had 1 wheel alignment done since I bought it in Dec 08.

The guy at the tyre place was pretty helpful, he put the car up on the hoist and took a reading of the alignment for me (attached). He said the car was within the specs, showing all green lights, but the range on the specs was massive and I'm sitting at the outside edge of these specs. He said the last place that did my wheel alignment would have just thought, yep, it's within specs so she'll be right, so the inside edge of the tyres has continued to wear. He suggested that if I was intending on keeping the car for a few years yet, to put in a rear camber kit ($550 fitted), so that they could adjust the camber and the wear on the tyres would be more even.

For tyres he suggested:
Continental Sport Contact 2 @ $300/corner
Yokohama Advan Sport @ $365/corner

I'm hesitant to put an aftermarket adjustment kit on the car without knowing much about it, but at the same time, am a little shocked at only getting just under 19,000km on the Dunlop Sport 2050's.

I'm planning on emailing Mazda Australia on this issue. I realise I've bought a performance vehicle, but surely the suspension setup shouldn't be sending the inside edges of our tyres bald after so little km's.

Attachment 7705

---------- Post added at 03:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:26 PM ----------

He is getting back to me with a solution --> a concentric bolt modification to give some adjustment. I will run any mods past Mazda to protect my warranty, but I also want to protect my Tires!!

He's writing a report explaining that this amount of camber is rediculous on a new car with factory suspension setup, and I'm going to take it to my dealer to see what they have to say.

Did you get any joy with Mazda on this?

[mps05]

The talk should not be all about negative camber. Uneven tyre wear is equally to do with incorrect toe settings.

I have run about -2 deg rear and -1 deg front on every car that I have owned, but because the toe was set up correctly I have never had any uneven tyre wear.

These camber figures are pretty much what my car have sat at after lowering. I have just evened them. If you run these cambers as I do, you have to adjust the toe to suit. Front memory mine is at 1.5 - 2mm negative toe each side on the rear and about 1mm negative toe on the front.

Negative toe points the front of the wheels inwards in order to counteract negative camber. If you run negative camber and say 0 toe, you will scrub the tyres on the inside. Likewise if you run zero camber and positive toe, you will scrub the inside. Zero camber, negative toe will scrub the outside.

[nzjase]

that sounds interesting, i'll talk to alignment guy about this.

---------- Post added at 01:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:48 PM ----------

I had a visit to my Mazda dealer on the last service and they came back to me saying that as long as i get about 25000km from the tires, then they feel it is acceptable.
they took the tires off on the last service and rotated inside to outside, thus giving fresh tread to wear off. lol that'll give me another 5000km they figure. fine so far, but the sidewall all worn on the outside looks pretty bad.

they also told me that the car is designed as a sports car, and as such, the camber settings are correct and required to get the performance expected of this type of car. If the camber was less, they tell me, the car might not turn when i tell it to, etc.

For the time being, I am somewhat accepting of this answer.

I have also been in touch with my alignment guy after getting my car lowered on H&R Springs, and he will set up an offset bolt type of thing, so there will be some adjustment in the back. The front can be easily modified to give more camber adjustment, he tells me.

However this Toe Adjustment sounds like an easier fix? cheers

[Jeev]

Your lowered springs will exaggerate this problem much, much more too.

[ZedN]

The Potenza's I had on went for 45,000KMs without any wear issues at all. Went to Fulcrum last week and he told me these stupid Falken tyres I put on have inside tyre wear. Suggested getting them replaced or getting them pulled off the rims and swapped around.
I'm blaming the tyre, but the people who put them on recommended these tyres so wouldnt suprise me if they did an alignment wrong too, lol. I dont know how bad it is, but I just hope they last another 2 months (5000Ks) cause I have rego, racq, electricity bills all due this month so I cant afford $1500 on tyres, lol.

[Jeev]

The Potenza's I had on went for 45,000KMs without any wear issues at all. Went to Fulcrum last week and he told me these stupid Falken tyres I put on have inside tyre wear. Suggested getting them replaced or getting them pulled off the rims and swapped around.
I'm blaming the tyre, but the people who put them on recommended these tyres so wouldnt suprise me if they did an alignment wrong too, lol. I dont know how bad it is, but I just hope they last another 2 months (5000Ks) cause I have rego, racq, electricity bills all due this month so I cant afford $1500 on tyres, lol.

Is your Gen1 lowered too? If you lower it and don't correct the camber/toe/castor for the new geometry it's pretty likely you wear the arse out of your tyres...

[projectrracing]

the original issue with the inside tyres wearing excessively is have a poor alignment with toe out.
on a fwd car like mpss, you should have toe in of about 0.5mm to 0.7mm.

having -1.0d camber on the fronts and -2.0d camber on the rears is common practice these days for performance fwd cars.

also remember that just because you have a new car, that you do not need to get wheel alignments. you do! also most dealerships cannot do wheel alignments. so don't think it is included as part of your servicing. you will need to go to a 3rd party shop to get them done.