Magneson

Recently I replaced two front tires on the Z. Tire guy says ALL corvettes wear out the inside tire like mine and the wear is normal...It handles and drives fine. Tires had 25k miles. Some aggressive driving, no track time.





In need of caster camber alignment adjustment or normal?

ZR-1 1991

Not normal , you need an alignment.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

That looks exactly like my front passenger tire.

Magneson

Thanks. Tire guy wants to make money

tim414

As I understand it, C6 w/Z51 cars would do this because of factory alignment. My '09 were wearing like that (C6 w/Z51). On my '10 Z I had the original GY's on my car for approx 6k miles but I did NOT see that sort of wear. The fronts had more tread left than the rear was only thing I noticed about the Z.

Magneson

The power eats up the rears, lucky to get 15k out of the rear tires. Mine is a 2008. Got an appointment for Tuesday, lets see what the dealer says .

BearZ06

Very common, mine did the same thing. If you don't track your car have them set the front straight up for better tire wear. I couldn't tell any difference other than better wear. I think the recommended Z06 specs will still give you wear on the front.

Magneson

Thanks I will tell them that.

bass mechanic

my car did the same thing, the root cause of this problem is parking lot maneuvers! if you turn the wheel to either side full lock you will feel the inside edge of the tires scrub the pavement.
the reason is from whats called the Ackerman effect, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackerma...ering_geometry and the fact that the caster setting on the car with the wide tires causes the outside tire in the turn to scrub the inside edge of the tire.
if you would like a visual explanation park your car on level ground and turn the wheel full lock in either direction.
if you pick left, the left tire will have a lot more of the weight of the vehicle on the outside edge of the tire. because of the caster angle it also is lifting the car up off the ground.
because the chassis is so stiff and the anti sway bar so stiff it will cause the weight of the vehicle to be transferred to the left tire.
meanwhile the right tire has less weight on it (again because of caster angle)

now add in the ackerman effect what you have here is both the front wheels pointed in different directions in a tight turn.
this will cause at least 1 wheel to be skidded sideways as you turn and that will always be the tire with the least amount of weight on it.

hard to believe a parking lot maneuver would cause that much wear but if you also look at where the tire contacts the ground in a tight turn, you'll see that it is scrubbed exactly on the edge where that wear is showing on your tires.

having driven about 40,000 miles in my current and previous Z06 and replaced front tires 2x on my old Z, I've learned that to get the best use of my tires i choose parking spaces i can either drive through and make a wide turn when i exit, or make smaller turns and make 2 rather than 1 when backing out of a space.

you will find that if you avoid turns that make the front tires scrub against the pavement you'll get almost 2x the life out of the tires. as you can see you still have quite a bit of good unused tread across that tire. if it weren't for having wore the edges to the chords you could still use that tire another 8,000 miles.

you do not need an alignment, if your tires were tow out enough to wear them out it would be all the way across the tread and evenly. or if they were were too much negative camber, to wear the inside like that it would be so obvious wouldn't need an alignment rack to see it. it would be plainly obvious just looking at the car.

go experiment as i have suggested looking at the contact points of the tire in a full wheel lock condition and you'll see that the outside tire, inside edge contacts the pavement exactly in the same location as the wear in your picture.
if you get down on ground level and look under the tire you'll see the outside edge of the tire won't even be touching the ground!
you can also feel the car rock left to right if you turn the wheels full left, and full right. you will see that the car actually rolls left and right as the weight is transferred from 1 side to the other.
this is totally normal suspension geometry for every car but get exaggerated because of the wide tires and little to no give in the sidewalls along with the stiff suspension.

Mr. Gizmo

25k miles on a set of good year run flats on a z06 is very good.

Too-Fast

However, in the picture there is abnormal wear compared to the rest of the tread on the edge. This could be due to, scrubbing, or a toe problem also. You should have the alignment checked by a reputable shop that understands the Corvette suspension geometry...read this: someone that does Corvettes a lot.

Bill Dearborn

Check the outside of the rear tires. Even with a lot of negative camber they seem to wear the outside faster than the inside. Have to have zero toe to reduce it.

Bill

TurdsOfMayhem

I used the Performance Street recommended by Pfadt. So far so good.
http://www.pfadtracing.com/photos/sh...php/photo/1917

From what I understand and read that is normal wear. Both my front tires looked like that. Unknown mileage on them when I replaced them.

El Paso Vette

Nope, all Corvettes do not wear out on the inside. Find a new tire and alignment guy. You do have 25K on them so you need new tires anyway.

0Anthony @ LGMotorsports

How did you get 25k from the GoodYears?


But no that is not normal. I would check alignment first and foremost. Looks to me to be primarily toe related but could be a combination of toe and camber.

PatriotZ

Drivers.....unless you are a pretty serious track person...or want to roadrace.....have the alignment person set the camber to a more neutral position.....as stated by a few here......... the factory alignment/camber is fairly aggressive......for most of us you will not notice any difference in handling....but your tires will appreciate the added life

QUAKEJAKE

This ^ I"ll stake my new Michelin PSS's on it. The ZO6 factory alignment is geared toward it's "track ready" braging rights.

speedmon

You got 25K out of F1s? Thats a miracle. Maybe because its been running on the inside edge.....thats a lot of cord.
You should probably check your tire wear more frequently.

Thats my kind of wear though....neg camber, toe out!

carpe dm

Like most all Corvettes, it needs an alignment. Too much toe and camber have ruined a number of my Corvette tires (and thousands of other folk's) until I finally got smart and had the alignment changed.

bass mechanic

GUY'S ITS NOT HIS ALIGNMENT! see my post above #9
forget the alignment!
if you don't believe me than please perform this experiment..

jack your car up and take a can of white spray paint and dust the inside area of the front tires right in the area where his tire wear is.

take the car down the road and i bet you the paint stays on the tire for at least a mile without fading as long as your driving without any sharp turns.

take the car to a parking lot and repeat, i bet you won't make 2 circles without rubbing all the paint off the tire!
if you make a circle to the left you'll loose paint on the right tire on the inside edge.
turn to the right you'll loose the paint on the left tire.

anyone dare to take me up on it? anyone with a "in spec" or "correct" alignment.
ill bet you 100 bucks you get the same results as you see on those worn tires.
to the OP you'll also find that the GY runflat EMT tires are not the same tread depth across the entire tire. because of this fact the tires will have bands in the center that appear more worn than others. this is normal and indicates a perfect alignment.
the damage to your tires was done in parking lots or places where you were full wheel locked turning..