I noticed yesterday that front drivers side tire is worn to the threads on the very inside half inch of the tire. The tire IS NOT rubbin on anything. I just had the front tires replaced about 5000 miles ago and had the dealer do a 4 wheel alignment for a second time. The car was pulling just a bit to the left and I complained and had them re-align it. It still pulled to the left a bit but instead of having them mess up my Z06 any more I took it. Its rather clear, to me anyway, that my drivers front isn't even close to aligned. Do I have any options for having the dealer replace this tire? Or is 5000 miles to much to blame it on a bad alignment?
I'm not really excited to bring my Z06 back to and have to deal with these morons. They have a track record of breaking more then they fix.
Any advice?
Thanks.
-Marine

 

This is a very good question, i had my alignment and balance around 4000 miles ago and right now its so f'd up it's kind of scary to drive. It pulls either way so im not really sure what happened, but our roads here are terrible too. I think a good question is what is normal for these cars to get aligned? I would say 4k or 5k is NOT normal under any circumstances. You would be best going to a different dealer for a 2nd opinion i think.

 

The ZO6 front suspension is a stable design that does not require constant alignment. My Z had a bad alignment ( incorrect toe L & R ) from the factory and ate the inside of both fronts in less than 10K miles. Finding a shop that has correctly calibrated equipment, and a knowledgable technician to operate it is usually the problem. You MUST have a quality alignment rack with lazer signted sensors on all wheels. You MUST perform Caster, Camber, and Toe settings on all 4 wheels. If the car is out, it can take a good tech 2 - 2 1/2 hours to perform the complete operation. Get recommendations from others in your area. A full alignment on one of our cars can run $125-150. It's worth it when you look at the price of a set of F-1's

 

Well then my question is if I paid for 2 new front tires and paid for an alignment from the dealer and 5000 miles later I have a worthless tire and alignment, who pays for that? Me or the idiots who "aligned" the tires in the first place.
I'm under the thinking right now, the dealer should replace the tire and I'm more then willing to go get it RE-aligned elsewhere.
I'm always willing to pay what "it cost" to get it done right. I'm less then willing to bend over and take it.

 

You may have gotten a 12mo warranty on the alignment. But more than likely they would just do the alignment again (probably wrong again too). Or you hit a pothole, curb or something to change it. Other than that you don't need the car realigned every 5K miles. Once a year would be more than enough for a street driven car.

Like CHJ said. You need a shop that has the best equipment. The Hunter alignment racks that use lasers are awesome. The shop I use has one. He charges me by the hour. So the first time to get the setup done was $120. That was to align front, rear, then thrust angles etc front to back.

Even though I track/autox the car I only get it done once a year.

 

I actually believe that type of wear is very common on the Z06 and not due to any inherent problem with the alignment. That said, your car's alignment still may be hosed.

Here are the Z06 alignment specs:
Front Individual Toe: +0.04 degree +/- 0.10 degree
Front Sum Toe: +0.08 degree +/- 0.20 degree
Front Individual Caster: +6.9 degree +/- 0.50 degree
Front Cross Caster: within +/- 0.25 degree
Front Individual Camber: -0.70 degree +/-0.50 degree
Front Cross Camber: within +/-0.25 degree
Rear Individual Toe: -0.01 degree +/- 0.10 degree
Rear Sum Toe: -0.02 degree +/- 0.20 degree
Rear Individual Camber: -0.68 degree +/- 0.50 degree
Rear Cross Camber: within +/- 0.50 degree

Some things worth pointing out:
- Note the variance in the allowed specs. Take front camber for example. -0.7 is ideal, but anything from -0.2 to -1.2 is "in" spec.
- If the car is set up to nominal specs, the front has -0.7 degrees of camber which means they are running on the inside edge, the edge you wore out. Also note the front toe setting nominal spec is out 0.08 degrees. So... as your tire is running down the road on the inner edge, it is by design point outward slightly thus dragging that inner edge - resulting in very high wear. FYI, I wore out my stock inner edge in 3,000 miles (which did include one track event). Why is it like this? Handling. Negative camber helps handling. Slight toe out in front helps turn in and reduces mid-corner understeer.

To reduce this wear, at the sacrifice of handling, you can have your front camber set to a lower value (towards the -0.2 end of the spec range) and set your front toe to zero (which is within the stock spec band). Instead of just asking for a "spec" alignment, which has huge tolerances, ask specifically for something like -0.5 front camber, 0.0 front toe, etc. A good alignment shop should be able to hit within a tenth of a degree of what you ask for.

 

I agree Sub that on paper that is a good reason for tire wear. But I have had my Z06 for 35,000 miles. On that thinking I would have had to replace my front tires 7 times?
The Z06 is aggressive but I don't think it is 5000 miles on front tires aggressive.
And I didn't wear out the inside edges.
I have wear on the drivers side inside edge.
My right hand tire is perfectly fine with EVEN wear.
The way I think is:
It pulls a bit to the right. Well if I have 9.5 inches of contact on the right and 1/2 inch on the left, yup it just might pull that way.
But again thats just me.

 

Your alignment is probably uneven, but still may be "in" spec as I tried to point out above. All I was trying to point out was that given the wide variance in the stock settings, particularly front camber and front toe, wearing out the front inner edge in 5,000 miles is not really atypical and I see posts like this very frequently. But, I didn't mean to imply everyone's front tires wear out in 5,000 miles either.

Have your alignment checked on a good laser alignment machine and see what the before settings are. I'll bet you find you have more negative camber on the driver's side than the passenger side (probably with some toe out), but I'd be surprised if they were out of spec.

 

Most of the shops around here cannot align any of the C5's or C6's. They don't have the equipment to deal with the wide tires.

 

I see what your saying Sub.
Yes it might be a "bad" alignment as far as tire life, BUT it could still be within specs.
I just happen to have my alignment printout. I had the car aligned Aug 28th. and Yes I have
-1.1 camber left front
-0.5 camber right front
Which puts me on about the inside 1/2 inch of the tire.
And in spec by .1
Which I think is crap but oh well. I get to take the price of 2 front F1s in my rear.
I'll just put some wide ovals on all four and have it re-aligned some place other then the dealer.

 

Look for alignment shops that use the Hunter 811 alignment rack with WinAlign software. And verify the operator has been trained on it. Also preferably the GSP9700 Road Force balancing machine. You'll get your car aligned dead on, not within some sloppy parameters, like Subdriver was mentioning. That is too wide a swing. Especially if the alignment guy thinks he can be within that and NOT make both sides of the car at least equal.

The guy that does my work uses both of those peices of equipment. My tires get balanced with the absolute minimum of weights. My alignment is dead on to my specs within a tenth. And both sides are made dead equal.

Sounds like you car is off on one side Marine. But -1.1 camber isn't terrible. Toe out is a big problem and I haven't found it useful for track/autox unless you're willing to trash tires. I'm running -1.5 camber and 0 toe front. -1.0 camber and 1/8 total toe-in rear. That is for street/track/autox use and it is fine. Maybe a little inside tire wear but I balance it with the track/autox use so the outside edge ends up taking the beating. A little rear toe-in on a Vette makes it more stable at high speed under braking. If you are just street driving then try. -0.5 camber all around. 0 toe front and 1/16 total toe-in rear. That will still give you a bit better handling without trashing your tires.

 

Marine,
Yep, just like I suspected, the numbers are "in" spec, but crap. I can't believe an alignment guy would let it out of the shop with -1.1 on one side, and -0.5 on the other. As vms4ever and I both mentioned, having toe out will make the tire wear worse.

When you get it realigned next time, give them your own target within the spec window (such as the -0.5 suggested by vsm4evr) and don't let them get away with missing it by more than a tenth. Your tire life will be much much better next time around.

 

I can't believe I didn't think to catch it back when I let them do it.

 

Live and learn. I too wasn't sensitive to this issue until spending time on the forums. Although I am much more sensitive to it with my Z06, I was borrowing my brother-in-law's car last summer while on temporary duty in DC and as payback, I bought him new tires and had it aligned. The alignment sheet handed me was similar to yours and the first words out of my mouth were something along the lines of "I'm not paying for that...". The alignment guy started by trying to tell me he couldn't adjust the camber on the car (was a Dodge Shadow). When I explained to him how to do it, he punted and didn't charge me. I took it elsewhere.

 

Try this also. Go to www.gsp9700.com

That is Hunter's website for their primo balancing machine. Look on the top right and click on the Tab labelled Locate a GSP9700. Put in your zip code and see what it gives you. Any shop willing to buy the best wheel balancer AND does alignments should have good equipment. Unfortunately they don't offer that lookup for the alignment rack.

At least it may help you narrow down the shops you can call.

 

Good info. And funny enough the Toyota, nissan, and Lexus dealers are on the list but umm Not the Chevy dealer where I had my alignment. I'm puttin new shoes on her tomorrow and since I need an alignment anyway I'm going to lower her first.
Thanks for the info all.

 

I would take it back to the dealer, previous work order in hand, and try to get them to buy the new tire and re-align, all four.

They will probably tell you that you should have brought the car back to them before the tire wore out. "Didn't you feel it pulling" etc?

If they give you this line, ask for the GM Customer service complaint 800 telephone number. After giving it to you, say thanks and start to walk away.

If they don't stop you, call the number.

Did this when I had problems with my 02 transmission that was under warranty. As I was walking away, they stopped me from leaving after giving me the number. I wound up with an 04 6 speed, complete warranty. Lots more to the story but won't waste time to describe.

I think it important to be calm, rationale. You may have to ask to speak to the service Manager, as I did.

Maybe remind them that you trusted Mr. Goodwrench to do the job right; which is just one of the big spins in todays advertising market.