treadwear issues help
 

I have stock 18' rims on my 2011 Z. I bought a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S plus replacing my OEM at 10k miles. The tires are rated at 500AA with 45,000 mile warranty. After driving 10000 miles, the center is almost worn to the wear bar and the sides are only slightly worn. I tried to drop the psi down to 31 from 34 around 8000 mile mark on the rears (thinking it was over inflated) with no luck. any ideas and suggestions? Anyone else using these tires and care to share how many miles you get out of them, psi, and any premature wear (i know our cars comes factory with -1 camber)?

I do spirited runs, but that shouldnt cause premature center wear.

Thanks for your input

Well yes it could but so could under-inflated tires. There are only two logical values at play here (not including abuse), both of which should be common sense...

Tire pressure and alignment. Run the tires at Nissan spec (check the door jam) and get an alignment.

Also keep in mind that wear ratings on tires are numbers made up by the manufacturer and they aren't held to any particular standard so they are to be taken with a grain of salt.

Some of the reviews on this tire said they had issues getting more than 20k from them but majority had no complaints.

The tires have a 45,000 mile warranty IF you rotate them. You can't so they will last approximately half those miles. Read the fine print of the Michelin warranty about this. It also applies to all brand of tires.

you dont expect to drive 45K miles on these tires, right? this car is not a econobox... and suspension/alignment is not setup to do this...unless you specifically detune the alignment, i suppose.

as for the center wearing early.... that's odd. make sure your pressure gauge is accurate and to check psi in the morning preferably inside a garage where sun can't hit it. usually center of tread wearing early means over inflation.

if you mean that the inner treads are wearing early then check your toe angle.

Thanks for the replies. I know the tires are only warrantied for 22k miles bc it's staggered. My major concern is the premature wear in the center of the tire only. I had discount tire store deflated to 31 psi hoping to correct the issue, but with no luck. From my knowledge, center wear is only caused by overinflation, right?
Btw, my stock tires wore as it should for 10k miles, with the inside wearing out faster than outside due to negative camber.

I gave up on tire warranties years ago. They always find a reason not to give you anything. At 7250 miles I had used up the stock tires outer edge. With my new tires I added two degrees of camber to help wear out the centers more. At 12,800 miles the centers are fine and the outer edge is nearly worn out.

It is a matter of perspective. If I ever got 10,000 miles out of a set of front tires, well I don't know what I'd do. 7250 miles was the best I've ever done on any Z over the past 30 years and this is probably because I had two engine break ins.

I have a similar question, took my rims off to clean the hard to reach places last weekend and I noticed that the tread on the outside of the tire is worn down a lot more than the rest. I know I need tires soon but is that wear problem a sign of something else or is it normal for Z's? This is also on the rear tires and this is my first RWD car.

I've got the same question -- all four tires have slightly more wear on the outside than the inside. Stock tires from the sport package and 24,000 km's.

I've also seen this happen on tires that were mounted on rims that were not wide enough. This causes the tire's sidewall to angle in farther than normal and this makes the tire "bulge" in the center. No amount of air pressure adjustment will fix that. I used to work in a tire store like a hundred years ago, so I have seen this many times when people try to mismatch a rim and tire. Don't know if this pertains to your situation, but I thought that I would throw it out there.

Same issue with outside tire wear on sport package. I want to drop on swifts, so maybe not adding the camber kit will even out treadwear to the inside?

As a new Z owner myself (only have 7,000) miles so far on my DD, I've been told by long time Z owner and the dealership Tech's that its very important to keep this car aligned because if not, they see a lot of worn tires. My driving is a 120 miles per day and is a good cross of stop and go and spririted highway speeds. I've already noticed the tires needing alignment as it doesn't ride as smoothly. Just sharing what I've been told-