(please forgive the crosspost)

To anyone that was at the WDCR-SCCA event at FedEx Field on Saturday May 7th...

I really hope that what I think happened didn't happen and instead I just somehow missed something, but...

Did anyone see anything unusual in the paddock on during the morning session May 7 at FedEx? Like someone taking a couple of dismounted wheels with street tires that had 50%+ tread remaining that didn't belong to them and replacing them with identical wheels with the same type of street tire that had next to no tread left? The tires are 225/45-18 Bridgestone Potenza RE040s on the OE 18" 5 spoke Mazda RX-8 wheels.

I can't say for sure that it happened at the event, but that was the last time that the wheels were off the car. When we took them off in the morning, as far as I recall, all four street tires had about the same amount of tread remaining (and a fair amount of it at that). John put them back on in the afternoon and didn't notice anything different about where they were in our paddock spot or anything weird about the tires themselves.

I just noticed it this morning. It's entirely possible that someone could have swapped them in the middle of the night in front of my house this past week, but that's harder to believe for some reason. I do not believe that the wear happened without me noticing. They come off the car too often. When we were in Atlanta last month and we were getting the car ready to leave to come home, the only way I could tell the difference between the fronts and rears was by the amount of brake dust.

Now, two of the tires look just like before with plenty of tread and two of them are down to the wear bars in the center, as if someone had done a lot of burn outs (save the "Can an RX-8 do burn outs?" joke...I've already heard it twice today :-P) or something. I've put about a 1,000 miles on the car since we left Atlanta and I do not believe that there is any way that the way the car is driven on the street that kind of wear could happen that quickly.

If anyone saw anything or has any information, please contact me. If there is a guilty party, and s/he's reading this, I'd like to have my tires back.

Thanks!

clyde

 

dude that is f-in weak, hope it all works out for you

 

Could look on the bright side... At least they exchanged them so you don't have to buy new wheels... With my luck they would have just stole them.

 

Did you have the serial numbers off of them? I have mine in my glove box as a part of my paperwork when I bought the car.

Were you parked next to another 8? Maybe it's a simple mistake?

 

I know that it wasn't any of the other RX-8 drivers that participated. The only one that has been using r comps has the Dunlops. The other two still have plenty of tread on all four of their street tires.

Unless it was something recorded in the paperwork when I bought the car, I don't have the serial numbers (I never wrote them down). I thought you could only ID the tire down to the week/year of manufacture. I was going to check the numbers, though, as well as the ones on the four take offs in my basement and see if they give me any hints (if the dates on my two "new" tires is after my car's production date, I'll be a little more confident that someone swiped them...if all four tires on my car are the same week, I'll be a lot less certain)

 

Uh, mine are Toyos, replaced in november. Unless there is another 8 with Rs that I don't know about.

Now that you mention it, there was someone repeatedly looking at my setup in the paddock, but I thought he was looking at my trailer. Having been "up close and personal" to many other trailers throughout the paddock at the last few events, I ignored it.

Sorry to hear about your tires being uh... swapped. I guess the important question is... are the wheels in better condition? :P

 

:o :o :o :o :o

oops

I should better than to shoot my mouth off.

:o :o :o :o :o

 

so how many passes did your codriver make at the dragstrip when you were out of town ...


j/k :p

 

You know I'd forget to turn off DSC anyway.

 

LOL :D

 

It was Ken, wasn't it

 

He didn't come to the dragstrip with me.

 

So did you get a TPS check light??? If someone took YOUR wheels and swapped them the new TPS code from thier wheel would not be in your PCM and that should give you a check light. On the other hand if for some reason one of your alingment settings slipped you could kill tires in 1000 miles easy.

 

The Bridgestones only have a 140 treadwear rating, they won't last long especially if over/under-inflated or bad alignment, the grip is decent though, even for 8000 rpm launches

 

Oddly enough the tpms doesn't always fuss when you put a different set of wheels on. Some sensors on the same frequency/code?



Chopsmcgraw

 

No TPMS light. When someone else asked me about that in another thread, a light bulb went off over my head. I checked the tire build dates and all four are from the same week. Around the lug nuts, there's a similar amount and pattern of scratching as the other two wheels.

Would anything with alignment cause the center section to wear much more rapidly than the outer? There are 5 tread ribs. Counting from outside to inside, the most wear is on the inner edges of ribs 2 and 4 and rib 3 (center). Looks like over inflation to me or a lot of burn outs or something like that...all things that I haven't done. Someone suggested to me that worn bushings could cause wear like that.

And for tires that have a treadwear rating of 140, saw about 16 autocrosses and 12,000 street miles the other two tires have a surprising amount of tread left.

 

My tires look the same way and they have seen less than 10k miles and 6 track days.

It sounds like they are your tires and you just didn't notice the wear until now.

 

I'm sure now that's it, but it's really tough getting my head around the tire wear thing.

I should just stop thinking about it...at least until the next set of tires does the same thing.

 

Th RE40's will wear like hot cakes.

I only got two lap days ~ 140 miles before I wore the front tires out.
Rear ok but, fronts wear out because I go too fast around the corners.
The edges are bald.