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Thread: Ridiculously fast rear tire wear - PLEASE HELP

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
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    e90 with Cobb, H&R, more

    Ridiculously fast rear tire wear - PLEASE HELP

    I have a 2008 335Xi 6 speed with H&R coil-overs that's wearing out rear tires obscenely fast! I've searched the forums and the internet in general, and found a good number of posts/threads about people having what they consider excessive rear tire wear, but they're talking in the 15-20k range, with only a couple in the 10-15k range. My rear tires are only getting 3,000 miles or less before they're worn down to the wear bars. The front tires are wearing as I'd expect and at 3000 miles barely show any wear. They have a 45k mile tread wear warranty.

    I do the vast majority of my driving on highways, so I have the camber and toe set very mildly. I don't track the car, but I do push it on the twisty back roads in the Northeast maybe once a month. I do my own alignments and yes I know how to do them very well. Other than the coil-overs, the suspension is stock except the rear trailing arms and rear camber arms are pieces made for race cars that are double threaded with lock nuts. The stock arms were too long to get anywhere near a decent alignment so I put those new pieces in instead, and they allow me to change the camber and toe across a huge range, plus they're way stronger and stiffer than stock . The rear wheels only have a tiny bit of camber and toe. The tires are wearing evenly across the entire width, not on the inside edge like so many people complain about (which my car did when I bought it). I'm a guy that knows cars down to the tiniest details and I'm totally stumped. The brand of tire, tread pattern, and tread wear number make no discernible difference in how quickly the tires wear. I have digital tools I use to set the alignment exactly down to a 0.05' margin of error or less.

    Has anybody had this happen or heard of it before? I couldn't find a single thing on the internet. The fact that the tire wears evenly across the entire width shows the alignment is perfect (for my highway purposes), but is it possible to align the car too straight and get tons of tire wear? I don't have the exact alignment numbers right now, but basically the fronts are toed out very, very slightly (~5' each, which is nearly impossible to tell from straight) and they have about 10-15' of camber each (so at most a half degree total). The rears are set up with about 8-12' of toe-in each (so less than half a degree total), and the camber is set the same as the fronts )10-15' each). The coil-overs shouldn't make any difference, only the toe and camber.

    Before I put on the coil-overs this winter, the rear tires were wearing on their inside edges so much that the outside edge of the tire tread barely showed any wear, but they were the stock runflats which had an awful ride so I got rid of them. Since my rear shocks were blown at that point, I just went straight to an H&R setup I found online for a steal. The ride height is set to the highest it can go according to the H&R instructions, but again, tire wear rate shouldn't matter with respect to the height of the car.

    PLEASE HELP! I'm spending a ridiculous amount of money on tires! This latest set will probably only last me 5-6k miles since I can swap the rears to fronts and make all of the tires wear at the same very fast rate.
    Scott
    fast = good
    slow = bad
    See my old Porsche here...

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
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    West London/Heathrow - UK
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    03 530dT - Ex Police Car
    Hi,

    Out of all you've mentioned, you've forgotten to provide a fundamental piece of information...

    Which tyres, brand and model are you currently using and have done previously? tyres are not created equal, there's differing 'treadwear' characteristics of each brand and each subsequent model of tyre they make. As they're wearing evenly across the tread makes me think your 'DIY' alignment/settings etc are all good/fine. The ride height/coilovers aren't causing the issue either.

    I suspect you've been running softer compound or lower treadwear tyres. I'll explain why;

    Around 2006/7 I was doing quite a bit of mileage with a mix of the family business and private leisure use. I spoke to my trusted local wheel and tyre specialist who are well known to be a very well reputed specialist and he stocked a lot of tyre brands as they did a lot of local business company cars/vans maintenence. I'd recently purchased my Hartge 19's and I wanted a tyre that would last very well. He pointed me to some Federal 595 and Kumho KU31's and said whenever a customer wants long tyre wear characteristics these are the ones we put on. Given that a lot of company car owners did starship mileages, he knew what he was talking about. Many owners of the same car (E39) would often put on Falken FK452 tyres as another similar (mid priced) tyre brand and on forum posts, you'd see where owners were saying their Falkens were 'only' lasting between 10-15K miles and getting annoyed at having to change after a year to 18 months or so. I was on those Federal 595's and I did perhaps 30-30K miles and I still had perhaps 4/5mm of tread left ! I had some suspension issues and my fronts wore down really quick and so I purchased another set of fronts from Fereal again. Perhaps 10K miles later, I swapped the tyres to another set of wheels I had and sold them on. Another set of wheels (I buy/sell rare and more sought after wheels) Another set of 595's all round. They also similarly had about 20K put on them and were sold with another set of wheels! In recent years, I've swapped multiple wheel sets and one set came with some GoodYear Eagle F1's which have always had good tyre wear characteristics for a premium brand. Here and there I've had some part worn tyres and run them for a while 0-6 months or so, and some have worn quite quickly. Yokohama and I can't remember the model now, but they were 'soft'.

    On the side of every tyre will be a 'treadwear' rating. I think it goes from 180 to around 290, the higher the number the harder the compund and thus, the longer the tyre will last. Do some shopping around and look for tyres with higher treadwear ratings.

    On a side not, way back in the day 1997/1998, I'd just got my first IT contract and it was 180 miles away - temporary assignment so I was driving up there on a sunday evening and back down on a friday evening. Local driving at both sides as well. I'd just put on 17 inch wheels on my E30 and I was running very very low.. perhaps a 4 inch lower ride height from standard as I used to get custom springs made up. The camber was beyond insane as every E30 owner will know! so those tyres, costing a massive £230 each, on the rear of the car would last me perhaps 3/4 weeks before the inner edges were showing the threads! I wasn't happy shelling out so much, but I couldn't change due to the contract and family time etc. I even found the Dinan E30 camber kit on a USA visit and purchased it and upon getting back here, no one knew or had the experience to fit it !! It was crazy! Due to other aspects, I wanted to sell the car and I spoke to a few friends and I had a knock on my door 18 hours later, an envelope thrust into my hands with full asking price (it was a well known E30 as my modifications and styling choices were different to the usual E30's) So, in a way, I kinda got lucky in not having to keep shelling out so much on tyres! my regret was selling the car with the wheels it was on - they were 17 inch Germany made items that looked like AC Schnitzer Type 2's and E30 4 stud/offset fitment, perhaps 1 of 3 sets in the UK at the time! My trusted wheel/tyre contact having sourced them at the time.

    I'd also take your car to a well reputable and knowledgable alignment specialist and have it all checked over properly again for an independent check, you never know, you 'might' have missed something, but 'soft' tyres is my response as to the cause you describe.

    Cheers, Dennis!

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Coquitlam, BC, Canada
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    2003 530i
    You also didn't mention camber on rear, or thrust angle. I would check wheelbase side to side as well, in case there is a subframe misaligned and/or accident damage. Also, go over all bushings and balljoints. You are definitely missing something.

    Also, car alignment can never be too straight, as to have an effect on tire wear. You could try less toe on the rear too. Take it down to 5'? Beware of instability under breaking and oversteer.

    Sent from my LG-H915 using Tapatalk


  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    03 zhp, 97 e36m3, 04 zhp
    I've seen 700 - could not believe my eyes!

    Quote Originally Posted by DennisCooper View Post

    On the side of every tyre will be a 'treadwear' rating. I think it goes from 180 to around 290, the higher the number the harder the compund and thus, the longer the tyre will last. Do some shopping around and look for tyres with higher treadwear ratings.



    Cheers, Dennis!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
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    hiss by my window
    Unless an alignment issue, you mention even wear, or the world's crappiest tires I suspect your issue is in the throttle.

    If you can leave two black stripes from the exit of one corner to the braking zone of the next, you have enough horsepower. - Mark Donohue

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