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Well, I noticed the other day that my passenger side front tire is completely bald. I went to look at the drivers side and it has plenty of thread left. I thought to myself, wtf's going on? I asked one of my car buddies what he thought and he thinks it's the differential, only one tire spins, not both? Is he correct?

Also, my steering wheel has to be tilted a little fo the left to go straight, instead of dead on center, is that normal?

Have you had an alignment lately? Also, you might want to make sure the tire is not lacking air.

Your alignment is off. As for the tire being bald, Id check your air pressure

do you spin the tires a lot?

if yes, then that is your main reason. the only neon that came with a limited slip type differential was the 04 & 05 srt's. so when you spin the tires the tire with the least resistance will spin, the passenger one.

your alignment is off some, but i would bet that ^^ is the main problem

he forgot to mention he's also on air bags if that matters any with alignment. *shrugS*

if the pass tire is completely bald, and not bald on the outside or inside of the tread then i dont think the bags would have much to do with this.

if the car wasnt aligned after the bags were installed then that could be the cause of the alignment problem.

I think I have a phantom grip limited slip differential in my car... or possibly a quaife (sp?) When I say I think, I'm 99% sure I bought a phantom grip and asked for it to be installed when I had the clutch and stuff done, but when I went into my shop about a year ago, I saw pretty much the exact phantom grip lsd for sale at the shop.. so I asked if that was in my car.. but was told he thought he put a quaife in there. If there wasn't a LSD would things be a little different?

And to answer the question, yes, I spin the tires a bit often, especially under show off situations.... the car does pull to the right under heavy acceleration, I'm pretty sure that's because the passenger side axel is shorter then the drivers side?

edit: it pulls to the right, not left my bad!

My front passsenger tire goes bald really quickly too....and it has on several sets of tires..not just one time. And I've had about 4 alignments done over that time period.

Here's the problem from what I understand: Even if you get an alignment, all they can really change is the toe. And if you have camber bolts, they can change that too. But they can't change CASTER, (unless you have really nice pillowball mounts with camber/caster adjustment). The caster on my front passenger corner always shows up in red on the alignment readout...cause it's out of the acceptable range and they can't do anything about it. I believe that's why my tire always wears out on that corner fastest..and the car pulls to the right all the time, no matter which side of the rode I'm on.

Caster is not a tire wearing angle. But if that is out and the other side is good time to look at the splits and SAI ans IA to see if something is bent!!!

crowd00control wrote:
Also, my steering wheel has to be tilted a little fo the left to go straight, instead of dead on center, is that normal?

Omg I think I just wet myself.

ewetho wrote:Caster is not a tire wearing angle. But if that is out and the other side is good time to look at the splits and SAI ans IA to see if something is bent!!!

Well, caster shouldn't be a tire wearing angle, I agree. It just seems that it's the only thing out of whack that could be causing it. What are you refering to by "SAI" or "IA"? I might have something in the suspension bent....but I highly doubt it.

quicksilvr wrote:Well, caster shouldn't be a tire wearing angle, I agree..

No...caster ISNT a wear angle. Caster is the movement of the tire to the front or to the rear. In a parallel line with the body.


Ive studied my steering and suspension when I was gonna get my ASE cert.

Ok, so it's not. How do you explain the tire eating phenomena?

being on air ride doesn't matter along as you know how much your running in each bag or what hieght feels good to the drive as high enough to ride with out riding like a 4x4 truck

quicksilvr wrote:Ok, so it's not. How do you explain the tire eating phenomena?

Loose/warn parts
Bent items
camber/toe issues
rear allignment could be out.

Could be all in how its driven



I can sit here and guess at it all day long buts not more than speculation.


The only way is for him to have it racked and get the readings.

MoparNeonMan wrote:

quicksilvr wrote:Ok, so it's not. How do you explain the tire eating phenomena?

Loose/warn parts
Nope


Bent items
Nope


camber/toe issues
Nope


rear allignment could be out.
Nope


Could be all in how its driven
To work and back every day, no hard corners...spin a tire maybe once a month (at most)



I can sit here and guess at it all day long buts not more than speculation.


The only way is for him to have it racked and get the readings.

There's my answers to those causes...

I just want to figure out what is causing the strange wear, and it's none of those things. I've had the suspension all the way apart within this last year, replaced ball joints, bushings etc. Nothing is damaged. It doesn't shake or rattle or roll. It just pulls to the right, and eats the front right tire.

ok....you cant be 100% sure untill its laser aligned


Your pulling to the right....you have to turn left.....so instead of your tires running like this


I I

they are running like this



\ \ but your still going ^ that way




It is possable that the caster is out. While caster is not a wear angle, if set incorrectly it could cause the car to pull to the right. Being that there is tread on the left and the right is bald....that could cause a pull as well. See....just because things look ok...dont mean shit. Stop wasting your time, and just go get the allignment checked. They will be able to tell you what the issue(s) could be.


Im not trrying to be an asshole. Im trying to save you some time. Oyull need to put a new tire on before a decent allignment can be done

pic

Alignment. And that pic looks pretty bad. Get yourself a new tire before you slide in the rain.

other side.. yeah it looks like i ran over some shit...

crowd00control wrote:

pic

The big issue I see on that first pic is camber. The tire is leaning out. However without a physical inspection of the tire I couldnt tell if there was more involed in it. When you said bald I imagined bald like a racing slick



And just by what I can see the 2nd looks like low aire pressure. Is there more tread in the middle as opposed to the edges?

MoparNeonMan wrote:
Im not trrying to be an asshole. Im trying to save you some time. Oyull need to put a new tire on before a decent allignment can be done

Thats what I'm trying to tell you. I had the car aligned on one of the newest racks around when I put brand new tires on it. And they couldn't tell me anything that would cause it other than that right front being out on caster.....

and the tire still wore out the exact same way the one before it had....and it was aligned the whole time that tire was on also.

then you got screwed

MoparNeonMan wrote:then you got screwed

By two different shops that are both reputable? I doubt it. But there has to be a reason for it, and I'm going to figure it out one way or the other.

Did you get an allignment print out?

Man, that looks like under inflation to me. All the wear is on the should blocks.

Even when I was running my own eyeballed alignment it wore one tire more, but it wore evently across the entire tire. That looks like it's limited to the shoulder blocks, with maybe a tadd too much ++camber. IMO I'd grab a new set of rubber and have an alignment done. Regular tire rotation helps out a lot as well, every oil change.

Seriously, people wonder why they get in accidents in the winter. Looking at those tires I know why now. They don't have to be snow tires, but get some tires with some meat on them

What I would like to see is your alignment settings right now. If possible with setbacks and wheel track.

IA is Included Angle.
SAI Steeing Axis Inclination.

Caster is the balljoint to center of strutmount as viewed from the side.
Camber is the angle of the wheel viewed from the front in our out at the top compared to the the bottom.
Toe is the tires being pointed together or apart at the front.

SAI is the balljoint to center of the strutmount as viewed from the front.
IA is SAI and Camber combined.

IF ------
SAI is out that means the ball joint in reference to the strutmount is out of alignment--- Car is bent

IA is out that means camber in reference to the correct SAI is out and thus the strut/knuckle is bent.

Great diagnostic tool if you know what you are looking for.

Your tire with tread holding snow on the outside vs wide balding stripe on the inside most likely a camber issue.

Now since it is AHEM (cough COUGH) green you'd think it is OK. But not necessarily. Also if the car is bent you need to get that remedied.

If you have the alignment done again make sure to get SAI and IA reading which means the have to swing the wheels in the air to get a proper accurate reading. If the do a FASTER CASTER reading that gets read while measuring Caster that is only an approximate guess not an accurate reading. Also without doing the caster sweep (Which they are doing if you have readings) you can get false Camber readings.

You can PM me with the all the readings and I will read them for you and get an idea if something is bent.


AlSO DOUBLE CHECK you front end and rear end for loose parts and bad bushings.

ewetho wrote:What I would like to see is your alignment settings right now. If possible with setbacks and wheel track.

IA is Included Angle.
SAI Steeing Axis Inclination.

Caster is the balljoint to center of strutmount as viewed from the side.
Camber is the angle of the wheel viewed from the front in our out at the top compared to the the bottom.
Toe is the tires being pointed together or apart at the front.

SAI is the balljoint to center of the strutmount as viewed from the front.
IA is SAI and Camber combined.

IF ------
SAI is out that means the ball joint in reference to the strutmount is out of alignment--- Car is bent

IA is out that means camber in reference to the correct SAI is out and thus the strut/knuckle is bent.

Great diagnostic tool if you know what you are looking for.

Your tire with tread holding snow on the outside vs wide balding stripe on the inside most likely a camber issue.

Now since it is AHEM (cough COUGH) green you'd think it is OK. But not necessarily. Also if the car is bent you need to get that remedied.

If you have the alignment done again make sure to get SAI and IA reading which means the have to swing the wheels in the air to get a proper accurate reading. If the do a FASTER CASTER reading that gets read while measuring Caster that is only an approximate guess not an accurate reading. Also without doing the caster sweep (Which they are doing if you have readings) you can get false Camber readings.

You can PM me with the all the readings and I will read them for you and get an idea if something is bent.


AlSO DOUBLE CHECK you front end and rear end for loose parts and bad bushings.

Awesome info. I'll grab my printouts next time I can and scan them.

I'm going to say it's the bags, in fact, I'm going to say that I am 95% positive it's the bags, because when you get it aligned, that alignment (camber wise) goes bye-bye once you hit the switch. Plus, when you are driving around, the car is never at the same height, so the alignment is ALWAYS out of whack.

I wouldn't waste your money on an alignment on bags, the only thing that *may* stay true after the alignment would be the toe. Which could possibly be the reason for your wearing the outside of the tire (toe in), and it could possibly just be off on that side.

The only way to fight this on bags is to set the car EXACTLY where you know you will ALWAYS drve around with it, and get it aligned, then you must do your highway, and surface street driving at that setting for it not to abnormally wear the tires. That is tough to do on bags, because it is so hard to get it at just the right level every time.

Good luck figuring it out, as this is just my opinion.

this is the psi i drive at (as recommended by my performance shop for clearence issues) as you can see, the rear passenger side is at 60, while the rest are at 40, does this have anything to do with the mysterious bald tire?