XXXrx8XXX

Hey guys so here is the story. I never drive my 8 in the winter........noticed that my back passenger tire is loosing tread in the middle of the tire..... I run on stock potenzas. One time I hit a curb while turning in an under ground parking lot.

Bascially the rim got scratched a bit nothing else ......it felt the car's back bounce off of the curb....i was doing about 5k/h.....after about 4000km later i noticed the middle part of tire losing tread..if anyone runs potenzas u know there is a little stripe running across the middle.........so went to mazda and got an alignment and rotated the tires. Now after 2000km its still loosing tread in the new rotated tire on the right hand side. So what is up??? plus when the alignment was done i noticed my car pulls to the right now....could be because o the rotated tire that has less tread in the middle..


the hit to the curb was not hard. The tech told me that i didn't really need alignment ....he said bascially that you may lose tread on the right back tire faster when u take of from the green light while accelerating quickly the right wheel spins faster some **** like that....without peeling the tires cause i never do......


should i go back and get a re-alignment?? what to do??

climacus

You probably broke something in that corner. It won't show up when your car is sitting static on the alignment machine. But when it is actually moving, the suspension deflection is way off hence the rapid tire wear.

rotarygreg

if the car is pulling after they did an alignment, of course bring it back. it shouldnt do that. they should have test driven the car after the alignment and made adjustments to correct that before giving you back the car.

as for the tire wear. if its wearing only in the middle, i would say your tire pressure is too high. bad alignment wont cause wear in the middle of the tire, it will cause edge wear and feathering and stuff like that. the wear you are describing is textbook high tire pressure. check them/set them. they should all be at around 32psi.

climacus

I think his tire might be feathering in the center, he just doesn't know how to describe it. It's hard to burn off your tread in 4000km from overinflation, especially since it is happening to two tires in a row, and both tires are at the same corner.

If the suspension is bent, the toe might look fine on the machine, but as soon as you drive it out, it is now at some weird angle, and you are basically dragging the tire sideway on the pavement.

rotarygreg

if you had that much toe on one rear wheel you would know it for sure just by driving it. the car would be all over the road. if it was toed out in the amount you are suggesting (enough to roast a tire in a short perioud of time) every time you turned one way the back end would feel like its following you around the turn. turn the other way and the same tire would wale and squeal.

allingment issues wont typaclly only affect the center of the tread. toe problems will cause the stressed edge of the tire (outside edge if toed in, inside edge if drastically toed out) but unless it was out by a mile you wouldnt create that much wear in a short time frame.

camber is another that affects the edges of the tire. in fact i cant think of a scenario that would cause only center wear on a properly inflated tire. the only way to make the center of the tire the main contact point on the road is to crank the pressure way above normal and have the tire running straight, not toed in or out or with any camber in or out.

so to the OP. check your pressue. get a tread depth gauge and measure the depth across the affected tires. maybe it looks worse than it is. either way, post up to give us an idea of the amount of wear you are talking about. and for the love of god, bring it back to whoever did your alignment and complain. you pay good money for an alignment, it should not pull if they have done their job. all the alignment angles have a range for just this occasion. maybe they squared everything up right in the middle of the range for all the angles but if its pulling/leading one way or the other they are able to play with the specs and still keep everything in range to get rid of the pull and tire wear wont be affected much if at all.

TheWulf

iTrader: (4)

^+1

umforder

Yeah, I immediately thought tire pressure as well.

XXXrx8XXX

funny thing is when i got the car new i always felt like the back tire made noise on the high way like a wobbling sound from time to time it almost feels like ur skidding on ice........maybe its a lemon car??