The tread on my front tires keeps wearing down on the inside incredibly fast. I thought the previous owner never had the alignment done after he installed the pfadt suspension so after I replaced the tires I had sears do an alignment.

Just changed the oil and noticed that on both of the front tires, the inside has 5% tread left and everything else has 85%+ more tread.

My friends mustang required caster camber plates to fix his abnormal wear after he replaced his suspension so I'm curious if their is something I will need to buy to help stop this abnormal wear.

 

there is camber/caster adjustments from the factory. My bet would be that sears didnt adjust the camber when they aligned it and just did a "toe and go". did you get a print out of the specs?

 

Sounds like you are runnig a lot of camber. Likely had some toe as well before the alignment, depending how quick they wore out.

 

Had sears do the alignment twice. The first time they said their printer was messing up but everything was "within spec". On the drive home I could tell the car went to the left on its own easily.

Went back and had them fix it and got a print out this time, everything seemed to be normal but I have noticed that the car will steer towards the left slightly now that it's been a few months.

Sears has a one-year warranty on their alignment but after what I had to deal with going to sears I really do not want to go back because during the first time they scratched two of my rims installing the tires and I had to go to some private garage to get the rims fixed. Sears paid for it but I had to go out of my way to do it since they wanted me to leave my tires with them for a few days/or my car.

The workers there also get a kick about "who gets to move the corvette" that I HATE watching from the waiting room.

I'll stop by sears tomorrow and see what they will say but I have a feeling they will not replace my tire and only agree on fixing the alignment.

I may just pull the two tires off and get the tires flipped so the worn side is on the outside.

 

Check with your local sports car club. Find out where they take their cars for alignments and tire swaps and take yours there.

 

Sears?? Really.. i would question them doing a tune up on a riding mower...

 

"Within factory specs" is a crap response...there's a lot of variance in those specs. You want a true alignment shop that knows what those numbers actually mean, not just some guy trying to hit a target between the "specs". You can get a track alignment, an aggressive street alignment, or an alignment designed to give you good tire wear on the street...but you'll be hard-pressed to find a guy from Sears who'll be able to give you any of those options based on their knowledge of how to align the car. If you can find a shop that knows how to corner balance the car, they'll have the skill set to dial in your alignment to what you're looking for.

 

http://www.pfadtracing.com/docs/camb...t-settings.pdf

there are three different settings "all Factory Spec" guess which one wears out on the inside the fastest!!

 

This is great advise. Contact anyone associated with your local SCCA (Sports car club of america) or NASA Region and see where the racers take their cars. Your alignment is really only as good as the tech doing the work, so even if you pay a little more to get the alignment correct the first time you may end up saving yourself money in the long run in better tire wear. Typically folks who are used to working on high performance machines will be less inclinded to gawk at your Corvette and play games, and more familiar with getting the alignment properly dialed in.

It's easy to blame camber for tire wear, but in our experience it's usually Toe settings that are to blame for this kind of situation. Seeing that he's got 85% left on the outside of the tire and only 5% of the inside says that he's really chewing up the inside way faster than the outside. That's typically indicative of Toe Out.

Keep in mind that every time you change your ride height you will also slightly change your alignment as well. So if you've dropped of raised the car on our coilovers the alignment may have changed as well.

Here is a copy of our alignment guide. Click the image below for a full version. If the car doesn't see much track time, the performance street recommendation will work great for you. Our alignment spec has a much smaller tolerance than the factory alignment specs do, so with a tech really taking their time and dialing in the car properly you should see a big improvement in tire wear and likely performance as well.

 

The way I understand it, Z specs are set up to make for a quick handling car. They will eat the insides of the tires up before the tread is completely used up. I had my last Z setup to stock corvette specs and the tires lasted much longer.

 

IMHO it's highly unlikely that properly applied stock Z specs will result in uneven wear in the amount that the OP stated (80% tread differential between inside and outside). I agree with the others that he just needs to go to a performance-oriented alignment shop that knows what they're doing.

 

Toe out will have a much greater effect on tire wear than a negative camber setting. I'm running 2 deg neg camber in the front with 0 deg of toe angle and 1.5 neg camber in the rear with no appreaciable inner tire wear at either end. The car gets autocrossed regularly and it has relatively soft Kuhmo XS tires on it. I drove the car across the country on these settings with a different set of tires and experienced no unusual inner tire wear either.
I would take it to another alignment shop, have them check the toe angle and tell you what it is before any adjustment are made. Excessively worn tie rod ends and loose lower control arm suspension adjustment bolts can also cause the problems you describe.

 

I have a 1998 coupe and a 2004 Z06. Both cars wear the inside edges faster than the rest of the tire. This is normal for these cars. What I do is switch the front tires from left to right after 8,000 to 10,000 miles. Note: I do not switch the wheels, just the tires. These are directional tires so you have to dismount the tires from the wheel to do this.

 

I've got some bothersome wear comparable to the post, but thankfully I'm due for tires anyway. I had the full alignment done at the local Chevy dealer, but based on recent wear, I'm skeptical of their expertise. How does one find a "performance-oriented alignment shop"...is there a guide somewhere for my geographical location?

Todd

 

Up on the tool bar... Forums > Events and Regional > then select your US geography. Post your question there and ask for recommendations.

 

Well...let me ask this question in different way...is the average Chevy dealership competent to do a Corvette alignment, or do we need to find other shops?

 

See my statement above in post #7 of this thread for that answer.

 

I had mine done after i bought the car and installed new tires, made a large difference... I had one of my lead tech's at work do mine, we did a non "Factory Spec" setup so that i get better wear on the tires. Still handles fantastic, drives straight and holds the road well. I agree with everyone that says find a Alignment shop locally to correct the issue.. sounds like yours is way off. the stock Z setup does eat the insides of the tires but not as bad as you are discribing. A GOOD alignment shop can also tell you if something is worn (bushings, ball joints, tierods, ect) as well causing the issue... but sounds like the alignment shop is the issue here.

S