Tire Life on 05 Mini Cooper S?

[jtvm3]

Posting for a friend,

Friend purchased the Cooper S at Classic Mini in Mentor Ohio June 05.
At 9,000 miles front tires showed strange tire wear. A positive camber wearing. Dealership told him it was normal wear, but suggests an alignment to make him feel better. In short, after alignment the tires have progressively worn with a positive camber wear. Cords are now showing on the outside of tires with less than 11k miles on them.

Is this normal??? Suggestions???

Email at
jzacc@alltel.net

Thanks,

John

[Koopah]

At 9,000 miles, the dealer stated that this wear was normal? And only 2,000 miles later, the cords were showing?

This is NOT NORMAL. However, Classic MINI Service has, generally, received some fairly good press on the boards.

You don't specify if the owner has ever tracked the car using the OE tires. Autocrossing can definitely wear-down the outside shoulder of a tire; especially on a OE "performance" tire with tire pressures that are too low. That is why a race set-up tends to promote negative camber; the contact patch will include more of the tread instead of the shoulder.

If you friend has maintained factory-specified tire pressures and has not tracked the MINI, there is a problem indicated by the wear pattern. There have been cases where the front shock towers have deformed slightly ("mushrooming"), but I am not sure whether this would cause the severe wear pattern you report.

I would suggest that your friend seek a second opinion from another (well-respected) MINI service department.

Theo

[pbraun]

Yeah, Koopah, good idea!

That stuff is definitely not normal tire wear! Either another dealer should look at the car, or a reputable shop with a good allignment machine and operator to go with it.

Hey, what could it hurt? Just as a fail-safe technic, if nothing else. It is impossible to properly diagnose such a problem in a forum such as this. There are many factors involved, such as use of the car, as you mention, and others as well, that a meticulous inspection and investigation would reveal in order to solve an unwanted condition such as this.

[AlpinaM3]

What kind of tires?

[pbraun]

What kind of tires?

Why should that matter? Might be interesting, but .......... tire wear is tire wear, no?

[pbfoot]

if they are the performance runflats this wear isnt astonishingly abnormal. they tend to only last ~10,000 miles when driving on unprepared roads.

[RalphzMCS]

my runflats on the front had uneven tire wear after maybe 15k miles. i'm pretty abusive on the tires with twisties though so i wasn't surprised