Wondering if you guys could help me out. Ever since I installed my Coilovers and got the car aligned, I noticed that there is quite a bit of road noise when I make slow sharp turns (i.e. pulling into my driveway, pulling around a parking lot). I also notice that every once in a while the tire will slip a bit (i.e. a mini "burn out"). I am literally going two miles an hour, just trying to slowly enter my garage which means I need to take a right into my driveway. I made sure to get the car aligned after installation, but is there a chance that it wasn't properly aligned? I wish i got the numbers but the guy spent a good amount of time tweaking and getting the camber and such down to the degree.

 

Tire size specs?

 

My mistake, OEM tires 225/45x18

 

Ah, well was gonna say if you ran something wider and close to stock size circumference or bigger that could be the issue but it's not. Hrm...well the front end should be toe out no more than I would say 1/8" max, and the rear end toe in slightly or neutral. I can't see camber being that big of an issue unless you went past -3 degrees since for 225 OEM tires those things can be pretty hard tires if they're those Bridgestones and that limits your tire contact so it's a lot easier to spin. Just thinking randomly.

Also, how low are you? Have you checked to make sure the tire won't contact the inner fender wheel well? One way to check is to place a good sized block of wood under one tire while the other are on the ground to jam that tire on the corner up under the wheel well to see if it will hit anything. You could be contacting the plastic lining underneath if you're running quite low and need to shave some off as most of us that run aggressive do.

 

Yea to be honest I dont remember what the numbers were on the toe and camber, but I remember that his machine wouldn't tell him the stock numbers so he used "standard" numbers if that makes sense. This guy seemed pretty knowledgeable and actually let me in the shop. Talking to him I got a real good feel that he was good at what he was doing. But that is neither here nor there.

As far as height, I am not too much lower than most. My front has a decent tuck, I'm sure you can see from my pics in my album. As far as rubbing goes, I am pretty sure that I am not rubbing. I did some quick examining of the fender wall when I first started noticing, and didn't see any markings or anything, but I will have to give your method a shot. I am about 1 inch lower front and back.

PS. just realized i posted in the S1 forums err...

 

Ah, yea 1 inch drop shouldn't do it generally speaking, especially with OEM tire size. Just look for wear on the black plastic wheel well liners for rubbing/scrapping, not the fender edge itself. Also, how do you know the front tires are slipping? In theory if the front tires are slipping you would be understeering trying to turn the car. You mention a mini burn out...so that sounds like rear tires slipping

 

if the/a tire was slipping you'd get a DSC indicator on the dash usually. is the slip only at your driveway- maybe some gravel there?

 

Correct, for the rear tires...which is what doesn't add up stating there is a mini burnout, but you don't get that on the front tires.....

 

Well I have sport so I dont have DSC (sorry for the confusion)

As far as front vs rear, you have to forgive me, my last car was fwd so now that I think about it, it totally doesn't make sense, but I swear it felt the same. The way I know it did a lil burn out was because when I was visiting my parents, their driveway is actually at an incline. Naturally I go very slow pulling up. I pretty much get close to where the incline starts, and then stop, and start going up slow. I have a ton of clearance, I even had my brother watch to make sure I wouldn't scrape or anything.



Anyway, I had my window down on the passenger side. My parent's house is shown above, so i pretty much make a decent turn to get into the driveway (i park all the way on the right). Anyway, as I am going up, i hear a little noise as if i did indeed slide on some dirt or gravel.



Now at my apartment, (driveway at the bottom, garage is on the far left), it isn't as much as a sharp turn, so I actually can "swoop" into the garage. Today, pulling in, I slowed down as i waited for the garage door to go up. I am at a dead stop, and slowly pull in as the wheel is turned since I was mid turn. I hear a loud "rubbing noise", but no steering wheel shake or anything. Again it just sounded like road noise as if i was on the highway or something.

Hope those pics help. I will go right now and check my inner fender to make sure there is no markings

 

oh did he say it was front tires? i misread something...

 

Hrm...well,... i suppose i might actually be rubbing.... pics and a 'why' in a min

edit:

(Pics too large to post sorry)

http://i852.photobucket.com/albums/a...901_195307.jpg

http://i852.photobucket.com/albums/a...901_195302.jpg

http://i852.photobucket.com/albums/a...901_194945.jpg

I mean, I dont know, I have never had a car this low so I cant really gauge at first glance. I will have to do some testing. But I took the steering all the way right, and I can fit a solid finger between the upper left of the inner wall (upper left if you are looking at the passenger side wheel {US} directly ). I mention upper left because that seemed to be the tightest place.

My front springs are 10K springs, with a SOLID ride. I dont think that would matter much cause I am at a low (legit less than 5mph) speed anyway and not bumping and bouncing around. I tried bouncing the car a bit and didn't get much movement. I will have to try the wood test tomorrow.

 

I would try the block method and try turning the wheels while on it and checking every 1/4 a turn on the wheel to see if it rubs or is close. If it's close chances are under dynamic loading it's rubbing some. Yet, if it was really rubbing, you would see that plastic lining shaving off and it would be very noticeable.

My car is lowered around 2 to 2&1/2 inches on 255/40 tires and it rubs on the front and I just put up with it. I have my stance coilovers on the stiffest setting for the front yet I also have Progress sway bars to stiffen the roll resistance up so that helps as well. By the looks of the pictures the tire looks close but...I don't see any noticeable wear on the liners so I'm not so convinced that's the problem yet. But if you rear wheels are slipping then that's another matter and not the front end.

 

^^ Thanks for all the help. I will try the block test when I get home from work today and will report back my results.

Out of curiosity, if my rear tires were slipping, what would be the cause of that? Did I mysteriously get a torque boost to my wheels (lol). I will keep my ears open next time to see if i can isolate if it is front or rear.

 

Question. Lets say front tires are rubbing, would a set of 5mm spacers help out?

 

Well another question is, was this an isolated incident or does it occur frequently? If isolated then was it; damp out? perhaps a stone or two was underneath? is the driveway gravel? where the RPM's up there high while you let the clutch out even at slow speed causing it to slip?

I'd say, no. The OEM tires/wheels are in the optimum location for the car. Spacing them out doesn't solve the issue of when you turn the tires from rubbing on the plastic liner and using same circumference tire size ratios (such as my 255/40's) with wider tires can make it even more of a problem. For running this setup aggressive style with a low offset (+28) I had to grind a bit off the sheet metal in the wheel well area as well as deform the plastic liner to make room for the front tires when turning.

Since your car is new, even with 225 sized tires I find it hard to believe with negative camber a bit high say around -3 or even -4 it will cause a slip unless something added to the scenario like gravel assisted with it. I'm running -1.5 in the front and -2.5 camber in the rear due to a low offset wheel with fender mods underneath to prevent rubbing as much as I can but for stock rims @ stock offset you don't need negative camber since you're not even close to being flush with the fender and it doesn't help at all generally speaking in relation to rubbing issues from the front tires when you turn.

I'm leaning towards what those toe numbers are that were done at the alignment shop in regards to slip, and looking for any evidence of rubbing on the front in regards to the noise.

It could by chance just be the noise of the tires by the way from the new alignment and stock tires generally are a bit loud

 

As far as the "miniburn out" now that I think about it, yea it was an isolated incident. Low RPM's since I was trying to ease into my parents driveway. But as far as pulling into my own driveway, it does make a strange noise. Again, low RPM's pulling into the garage. Like, if I had to make a silly comparison, inside it sounds like as if i had massive treads on my car on flat pavement heh. Not sure if that helps

To avoid further confusion maybe what I will do is take some video/sound clips when I pull in today, hopefully that will help.

Gotcha, yea I honestly didn't see any wear on the inner wall or any markings on the tire. I even sweeped my finger across the lining to see if maybe there was some rubber deposits, but none, just the usual road dust.

Yea i mean as far as my camber goes, from a naked eye perspective I would say that it honestly isn't much different from what a nice stock camber is like. Actually I was looking next to my friends new Lexus IS, and his camber "looked" similar to mine. So I know I didn't have something rediculous going.

Who knows, maybe it is the noise of the tires, these things are pretty hard and meaty (thats what she said). I dont recall hearing it on stock height, but maybe I wasn't really listening since i assumed "its a new car eveyrthing is fine"

 

If you want I can take some pictures of my plastic liners after work and show you what real rubbing is on those things

 

Lol I can imagine, thanks for stickin with me on this by the way, I appreciate it. I will get some video/sound clips if I can after work to help isolate.

Worst comes to worst I will just go for another alignment tomorrow.

I'd say the only change I have made since that alignment was swapping out my springs (they gave me 175mm springs, i needed 200mm, they only had 7K instead of 6K). But with the Stance C/O's, the height is a separate adjustment than the spring so i highly doubt I threw off my alignment.

 

Well you guys were right, it is indeed my rear tires. When I pulled into my driveway today i heard the same rumbling noise. Turned off the radio and ac, and slowly worked my way forward as I was turning into the garage in 1st gear. Sounded like the rear tires were slipping a bit...

thoughts?

 

what brand tires are you running? Have you checked the clearance of the tires throughly? do you have stock wheels? if you dont have stock wheels are you sure they fit right?

as for your alignment I would take it to someone with a machine that has the proper settings. if your running it on a track you can actually make minor adjustments, but if your roads are canted to rain runoff you might make tiny adjustments to it if the car doesn't drive straight on the highway. here in texas the roads have a pretty decent grade to them to help with our crazy rain storms.

 

When you stiffen the suspension, the car can lose its ability to conform to drastic pavement changes such as driveways. When I stiffened up my RX3, it always hung a wheel up in the air when going up drives at an angle. I think it would drive with only one wheel on the front, and not drag the other hub.

So enjoy your increased traction on a flat road, if you like the stiffness, but most suspension changes involve an increased road harshness compromise.

 

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discussion-3/differential-noise-205533/

Thanks for the info, i think in this thread i diagnosed the issue incorrectly. After a bunch of research turns out it could be my diff that is acting up. We will see when i get the car back.