Uneven tire tread wear LR tire?
 

So I was invistigating a weird squeak on the rear of my car over the weekend. Found it was coming from my camber arm bushing. Tightened all bolts and lubed bushing with some white lithium grease. Squeaky noise is better but still there. I can live with that, as it’s under warranty (just installed 2-3 months ago) and I can get new ones if it gets worse


My main issue here is when I jacked up my car. I noticed my left rear tire has significantly more wear on the inner side that my right rear tire. Now I am “stanced” and slammed. But I’ve never had tires look this bad just after 1500 miles. It’s at roughly 45-50% tread. While my right rear is still at probably 85-90% tread. And my front two are at about 85-90% as well. My alignment was done after I lowered car and put all suspension components on. What gives? Everything was in spec. Except my camber. But toe is what eats up tires. I’ve been in the stanced game for a while. So don’t tell me “it’s just because your cars stanced” because the other rear tire is perfectly fine.... alignment, and all coilovers, camber arms etc was done within 3-4 months ago max. Both tires have 38 psi (same as the day they were mounted) I don’t favor corners left or right more. I normally go around corners pretty quick on both sides. So idk what else it could be. I figured If alignment got knocked out of whack it would be wearing one whole side or just rear of car , etc anyone else got any ideas? Do I need to have alignment re checked? For the time being I just rotated left rear to right rear and vice versa as my wheels are staggered and can’t swap fronts to rear. Car also doesn’t pull left or right and handles just fine. Which leads me to believe toe is out of whack. Bad.


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how much do you weigh?

Me or the car? Lol I’m like 140 lbs soaking wet lol

Since that is not an anomaly. Your camber is off...

Camber or toe? My camber is definitely off I think it’s -6 on both rear tires. But one tire is wearing way worse than the other. It also doesn’t pull in any direction. And I’ve had plenty of stanced cars with camber off, but toe on and not had crazy tread wear. Leading me to believe toe has gotten knocked out of alignment.

That is camber wear. If it was toe wear, you'd see diagonal scrub marks across the tire.

The reason why it may be affecting one side more than the other, is because the wheel center-line is off in relation to the other side. You won't get an accurate reading on this unless you use the string method of measuring alignment.

Only indication you might see on a alignment diagram is the thrust angle. If the car had the toe set with a poor thrust angle. You get camber wear on one side worse than the other.

BUT to be clear. This IS camber wear, not toe wear. -6 degrees with poor thrust angle would cause this. If you weighed more,It'd probably wouldn't be as bad. Also -6 degrees is not good...period. Maybe try buying better tires, may help marginally.

Also, it is possible you are scrubbing the tire on turns. But this is a problem with your control arms. It looks like you only have the adjustable camber arm and no aftermarket toe arm or no traction arm.

This will cause the tires to toe out significantly more during turns. There are too many variables here adding to you stanced situation.

A -6 camber will definitely wear the inside of the tire. All of the cars weight for that corner is sitting on the inner thread. Like Mayeffect said, if it was toe. The wear would look different. With toe wear. You will see feathering on the edge of the thread blocks. You're running that much camber, you got to pay to play.

Didn’t know -6.0* was possible?

You do now. :rofl2:

It's possible but even I think that's stupid unless is some VIP style ****

I still think something is off in the suspension on that side causing excessive camber when the car is in motion

I'd get an alignment from a different place to verify the measurements

Pretty bad when OZ says -6* camber is stupid...As with more negative camber,comes more negative toe...gotta have suspension parts to correct it.
I’d like to see an alignment sheet on this one.

:iagree:

:rofl2:

So should I just put my OE camber arms back on and get a realignment? The squeaking noise I originally searched for and found tire wear. Was coming from the aftermarket camber arms. The bushing towards the wheel. I lubed with white lit grease and this morning squeak is gone. But seems like something isn’t right with camber arm at least on driver (left rear side)

Completely understand “pay to play” thing. I was just curious as to why it wore so fast. Maybe 1200-1500 miles and ONLY ONE SIDE. My camber normally wore out tires bad in the inner side of tire evenly on the rear tires only. This is just one side. Making me thinking alignment or some sort of camber arm failure on that side.

It’s -5.3 and -5.4 to be exact (posted picture below) and that’s with these adjustable camber arms all the way in, they’re adjustable to -10 on my current setup. Because they’ll go out another -4 degrees

I got my alignment at Nissan... it’s the best shop around and they’re about the only place that will do it. It’s an in ground rack and other shops told me no... cause it’s “too low” lol

Here ya go, it’s -5.4 and -5.3 sorry not quiet -6 but 1/2 degree but yes! The arms are all the way in, they’ll go another -4 degrees my friend has the same arms and has -10 maybe mid -9’s but you get the point.


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Here’s another pic, I swapped left rear tire to right rear and vice versa so now the new looking tire is on the “bad” side I guess you can call it that. Lol! But it’s better lighting and on the ground. There’s definitely no feathering or scrubbing from what I can tell. Just looks like inner 2 tread blocks are way more worn than any of the rest. And the other rear tire still looks new. Alignment was done 7/27 by the way. So it’s been 3 1/2 months

ok, this is stupid

What suspension control arms are you using?

Is the alignment tech at "Nissan" familiar with adjustable suspension arms?

It seems like you're not TRYING to run -6 or whatever camber, so if you have that adjustability and still have a ****** up suspension, the problem MUST be:

1) You're using some low quality suspension arms or something is defective

or

2) Your alignment tech is incompetent and doesn't know how to adjust adjustable components

He wants to run that or more but he doesn't know why his tire is wearing out so fast because his prior experiences the tires lasted much longer.

It's like comparing apples to oranges and asking why they are different.
Different car different tires give different results.

A buddy of mine with the same one’s ordered mine on the invoice I just had price. They were $220 shipped. Which is about how much SPC (little cheaper) & SPL ‘s go for. They seem very durable and well built. Beefy metal. Beefy hardware and I’ve checked them. I’m also running SPL toe bolts. They camber arms are not bent, loose locking nuts or anything. I lubed the bushings last night and I heard the squeaking noise was normal on most all aftermarket camber arms. So the squeak went away and all appears fine with the camber arms.

But yes you’re correct. I just got the wheels to fender fitment where I wanted it. I could go a little bit more positive and still have good fitment and be okay with it. Yes the Nissan tech (a good friend of mine) has a lowered 240 and is familiar with adjustable camber arms, and other components. So if the tech is competent and knows how to properly adjust it (its adjusted all the way positive as it can and still at -5.3 / -5.4) does that mean camber arms failure? Or do I just need to just put OEM ones back on and see how it sits and get realigned?

Well that’s why I asked! I mean if that’s normal okay then I guess. Just haven’t had an issue like that before and we’re talking 4-5 other stanced cars. That had way more than -6 ... same tires on all cars just different sizes. I just have never seen one side wear that significantly more. I’ve seen rear tires wear more than fronts and vice versa but never left rear wear more than right rear.

Only thing i can suggest now is get adjustable swaybar end links if you don't already and get the car properly corner balanced.

eccentric bolts replaced with a lockout kit?

When I worked at Goodyear years ago. One of the things that I've seen. When a tire starts to wear in a pattern. It will continue to wear that way even when corrections are made. So, get your alignment checked, and turn the tires around on the rims. The outside to the inside. That's the cheap thing to do. The other is to get new tires after the alignment check.

No, just swapped out oe eccentric toe bolts with SPL bolts and camber arms came with new eccentric bolts. Is that an issue? Never had to buy a lockout kit before. What’s the benefits to a lockout kit? Are we talking for the toe bolt or for the actual bolt on the camber arm closer to wheel?

Yeah already ahead of you! I got car up on stands right now. Checking camber arms. They’re perfectly fine. Everything tight. They have regreaseable metal bushings so I definitely wanna keep them on over putting the stock rubber bushing ones back on. These seem a lot more sturdy. Definitely going to have my guy at Nissan flip tire (I’m used to that “stance” life haha) and re align it. Or I guess just double check. If alignments not out (as it was just done 3 months ago) then I’ll just flip tire and take it easy til spring (only a few months of winter here in the south so no big deal)


Only other thing I can think of is, I had a nail in that tire a month after I got it. I caught it as soon as it happened, had it professionally patched and checked the psi regularly for the first month or so. Was always at 35-38psi as it is now. Only thing I could think is maybe when the tire had a nail it dropped psi but I never noticed the tread wear when I had the patch put on. So doubtful. :confused:

Eccentric bolts can move. My guess is that one rolled.

more info here
https://www.z1motorsports.com/suspen...t-p-11977.html

IM SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION GUYS. I HAVE ADJUSTABLE CAMBER BOLTS (essentric) AND CAMBER ARMS. MY SPRING BASKET & TOE BOLTS ARE OEM! And on the alignment rack my toe went into spec just fine. My camber is the only issue I had (which I didn’t care about the -6) that’s not my issue. I get -6 is gonna eat tires up. But 1500 miles? Nah never had that happen and never just one side. My camber arms like stated above are in perfectly good condition, the speherical bearing on the left side moves freely back n forth but it looks like it should. The one on the right doesn’t.

So my factory toe essentric bolt went into alignment specs just fine and appear to be fine now. My camber arms and camber bolts are all that’s aftermarket on suspension besides coilovers. So I with that in mind. What could it be? Toe bolts go into spec and we’re fine 3 months ago on alignment. Camber arms is what was squeaking coming from the speherical bearing and I greased them and fixed that. Also I noticed camber arm sperhical bearing has play on left side (worn tire side) but not on right side. Is that a problem? Camber bolts are also aftermarket (SPL) but when I got on alignment rack we didn’t adjust camber at all. Only toe front and rear. Like I said. I’m okay with -3 up front and almost -6 rear. I know that doesn’t eat up tires in 1500 miles. I know toe is what eats it up. My camber still appears to be identical on both sides. My toe however I can’t eyeball even with string it looks fine on both sides and is what I’m assuming came out of alignment. Big bump cause that? Toe bolt faulty on left side? Any ideas? Or will I not know until I get it on alignment rack?

Spherical bearings are suppose to be tight. No play. If you have play on the left side. Everytime it moves. It's changing your camber AND toe.

So that would be my problem then? The spherical bearing in the camber arm has play in it. Also that is the side where the tire wore out. Cause my camber arms and camber bolts are the only thing on the alignment part of suspension that’s aftermarket. I have OEM toe bolts and spring basket (my toe went into alignment just fine without aftermarket toe bolts, so no need for aftermarket toe bolts) so if I swap my OEM camber arms back in and keep my SPL camber bolts. That should eliminate my problem? :icon14: and I’ll just need another alignment this week and probably just one tire. Lol but I won’t have to worry about my toe or camber adjusting itself every time that beating moves. I’ll just have to worry about the OEM Rubber bushings wearing out and replacing like normal?

I don't think so. If it was a problem, you'd have tire scarring and marks. Also maybe a lot of wobbling and severe clacking noises at highway speeds.

To be fair, your toe is not ideal. Having the camber set so aggressively is actually masking this problem. It should be lower than .1 degrees. Preferably toe'd in. Adding toe in will also increase negative camber though

Not really. I've seen loose spherical bearings make no noise at all. His could be in the beginning stages. So not a lot of wobbling.

I'm unsure if this has been mentioned yet, but what kind of diff do you have? If you have a base model/open diff that could be your issue. One tire fire on that kind of camber can quickly eat at your tread in any kind of aggressive driving. Also, if you have a VLSD it could be worn out and functioning as an open diff. How many miles are on your car?


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We really going to go down multiple pages for a stanced tire wear issue. Sorry but thats stanced life, do stupid **** to your performance car and get **** results what a shocker.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.


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I have a touring with sport package. But it’s stock besides exhaust, test pipes, intakes, coils, wheels and tires. And cosmetic mods. 60k on car. But yeah I could see one tire fire causing it. Never really burned out or did any donuts or anything. Like at all. Worse I do is 100 + pulls every now and then and take corners rather fast because it handles so well. And feels so planted. So not sure. Can’t I jack the rear up and spin one wheel and test if it’s open diff (worn out VLSD) ?
I believe it’s (open = I spin left wheel clockwise , the right wheel will spin opposite) (LSD/VLSD they will both spin same direction) ?

It was pretty easily moved under the car , wobbily as hell off the car like completely gone. And yeah no noise. Just slight squeak until I lubed it.

I’m going by Nissan today! I put OEM camber arms back on, car handles the same if not better. No wobbly feeling in rear. I think these arms are just sh*t and wore out. The bearing is def worn. Wobbily as hell.

Hahaha I like this guy!

:tup:

So update guys, I got my stock camber arms put back on. I was still at -4.5 and -4.3 in rear, completely stock everything except I still do have SPL camber bolts , just coilover drop. Pretty low. And so I got camber set at -3.5 in rear both sides. And -3.0 Front both sides.

Toe WAS WAY OUT!! I mean way out spec is like .16 and it was like 1.40 or something on both sides. So I got it set to .16 all around. Got green in toe all 4 corners. Camber is even -3 Front and -3.5 rear. And doesn’t look much different. Gonna be flipping tire Thursday when I’m off work. And ride on them until I order 2 new rear tires at beginning of next year. It was definitely a bad alignment caused by bad camber arm (Spherical bearing failure) I’ve contacted company to get a refund as they’re only 3 months old and failed. As well as stock camber arms are WAY less expensive, I don’t feel any difference in performance around corners. And I still have plenty of negative camber and good fitment in rear. So I’m a happy camper. Good alignment. Good specs for what I’m going for. And flipped to new side of tire. So back to good tread. That’ll last me rest of the year. I also did test while rear was up in The Air and my Nissan tech friend said the VLSD is just fine. Also since I put OE camber arms back in. I have no noise at all on small bumps. And much cheaper to replace when I need new camber arms / bushings.

Anyone know how long OEM camber arms bushings last?

When you changed the camber arms. It also change the toe setting. So you don't know how far off the toe really was. When making alignment adjustments on the rear. When you make a camber change. You have to make a toe change too. One will effect the other to a degree.

The factory arms should last the life time of the car. But we all know that parts will fail before their time.

Now go out & perform a Burnout!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7b96e755dd.jpg


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Yeah true! Lol well regardless it was clearly out if it was eating up tires! Well 1 tire. But regardless we’re at -3.5 rear and -3 Front now and perfectly in spec toe, and all that is in green. It even handles 10x better now. No wobbly feeling. I guess if I ever wanna go upgraded. I’ll do full camber arms, toe links, lock out kits all adjustment on arms. Probably upgraded end links and sway bar bushings as well. That’s only if my car starts needing them. Right now it feels tight and i don’t track car. So no need for it. I have 18 and 14k springs so it’s a stiff planted ride right now.

But thanks guys for all your help!