OK while installing my Vararam on Saturday I noticed that about an inch of the inside of my front two tires were worn to the nylon and steel belting. I've owned corvettes for the past 8 years and have never seen any wear pattern like this before. I have 26 k on my car and at 21 k brought it to the dealer to have the "super checkup where they flush the system and all. They did a wheel alignment and shimmed the car. I stormed over to the dealer first thing this morning and made them look at it. After about 3 hrs they told me that the alignment was close to perfect and this was normal wear for a C5 Z06....

Is this true?? I'm pissed. But if it is, its certainly not a wear patteren that I'm ever seen on a car unless the camber was toed out at the bottom. Any input? thanks.

 

Oh and the dealer also told me that the goodyears on Z06s are lucky to get 20k on them let alone 26k. BTW rear tires are fine.

 

I think you are okay. I have just under 12K on mine, and I'll probably get about another 10K out of them. And, I might add, I am a very "easy" driver on this car.

 

An alignment to Z06 specs calls for negative camber in order to get better tractions under extreme cornering maneuvers and leads to increased wear on the inside edges of the tires under mostly normal driving conditions. This appears to be normal based on previous threads posted on this forum. If you primarily drive your Z under normal street driving conditions, you might want to specify standard C5 alignment on your next wheel alignment.

 

Yes. Negative camber does cause the insides of the tires to wear quicker than the rest of the tire. The Z06 is set up for more negative camber since it is a performance car. You must drive in a straight line a lot.

I'm also willing to bet that after 26K miles, your tires are more worn than you think. I get in this argument with my dad all the time. He thinks that tires aren't worn out unless they are bald.

X

 

Unless your running the car HARD or tracking it, consider setting the car to C5 specs or at the lower end of the camber ranges for a Z06.

Just my $.02...

BTW....No way am I getting 26k out of the front or back tires!

 

I got 9K out of my first set, you might prefer the normal C5 specs.

 

I only got 12k out of the F1's my 02 Z before i needed new tires, but in my opinion its better to have a little inner tire ware than understeer.

 

Just want to throw out some of the stuff I "read" on the negative camber on the Z's and the OEM Supercar tires. The article (explaining the technology of the '01 Z when it came out) indicated that indeed the car is set up differently that the C5's (o.k. no surprise there). What I didn't know though, is that the Z's suspension was designed to move through nearly all it's range while maintaining optimal tread contact. Additionally, the OEM tires were a coordinated effort between GM and Goodyear to design a tire to account for the additional negative camber and exhibit even tire wear. I thought is was particiularly interesting since I had never considered (naively) that someone would actually specifically design tires to match a cars suspension geometry on a factory produced car as resaonably priced at the Z. So, it got me wondering about the Kuhmo's I recently put on. Will I see more tread wear on the inside of the tires NOT specifically designed for the Z. Too soon to tell, but I do know that a misalignment will cause drastic tire wear. Before I replaced the F1's, the fronts were worn evenly up to about the last 3 weeks I owned them, the the front left wore smooth on the outside (something a negatively cambered tire shouldn't do if everything is aligned properly). Had it aligned and things have been good for about 4k miles now. Had over 20k on the originals. No doubt I don't drive like many of the forum guys who get less than 10k or even 15k. But I still thought the discussion of the camber to be an interesting one.

Based on the information in the article and knowing that GM knew the Z would see more real street time than real track time with high speed cornering, I believe they addressed uneven tire wear with the combination suspension/F1s for aggressive roadway and occasionaly "sport" outings on the track. Make sure you have everything aligned according to the recommended specs and trust 50+ years of automotive engineering. To put a C5 spec alignment on a Z would throw things away from what was intended and the car's handling will be compromised, if ever so slightly.

I am a believer and (except for some of the recalls) I have found it very rewarding. Good luck with your decision.

Z

 

well it took a few days but I finally got my car taken care of. We(the dealer and I) settled on a 50/50 settlement. I bought one tire and they bought the other. They were nice enought but I'm still not too sure what right was. I was stationed in Germany and anyone who has been there knows how the german DMV is on tire wear and treads. I became **** with checking my treat with the little indicator, althought a penny works fine. At 20k I did the recommender dealer service which included an alignment etc. 5 k later the insides of my tires were not only bald but down to the steal belting.

The dealer explained ot me that that was normal for Z06s due to camber etc. Right before my 20k realignment I went to a car show. Now we all know how dirty these wheels get due to the pads. I always take my wheels off and clean them, just a little easier to clean if you ask me. I didn't notice any un even tire wear then. Now 5k is a long time but I still feel this was just a little weird. Plus a year old car shouldn't need to be "shimmed". But hey I'm no means a mechanic.

The guy at the dealer (a fellow corvette owner) convinced me to get Toyo tires. Said he had them on 2 of his 3 vettes and loves them. He has always been fair and honest with me and goes the extra mile for me to include giving me a free rental even when I get my oil changed. I took his advice and got the Toyos. They have agood tread and are very aggressive looking. Now I just have to get some for hte rear.

I just hope I didn't have to pay 300 bucks for a dealer screw up. Thanks for all your input.

 

One more thing, the F1 SC has only 9/32 tread when new, so you should expect them to not last as long as the tires that most cars get with 11/32 or sometimes more. At 9K, my tires have 6/32 left, so your wear rate sounds right.

 

It's normal to wear out the inside of the fronts early.

 

Mine have 29,600 miles on them and I still have plenty of tread left.

 

Got 20,000 on the F1's on my 2002 Z06. Changed to Toyo's and improved ride by 20% and got equal handling as the F1's at track events.

 

Why wouldn't it be 'normal' to remove a little of the negative camber and wear the tire out evenly?

The clear indication is the inside of the tire is working too hard and the rest of the tire isn't generating as much traction as it is capable of.

 

heck if I know, it still doesn't make sense to me. I guess I have to drive on more curving roads instead of straight ones?????

 

I think the concept there is that under extreme cornering, the tires become more even and therefore, have more traction under that condition, providing the improved lateral G's. The downside may be uneven wear under "normal" driving conditions.

 

Hi dragon -

I had a set of F1's from my 02 with 21kmiles on them - they were not wearing unusually and they still had *some* life left - albiet not a lot.

I am not aware of a preponderance of Zo6 owners that post on any of the major boards, or any automotive news that support the notion that it is somehow normal for a Z06 to wear the tires in an unusual way (unless it is tracked...)

I do hear tell of rear tires going bald a lot... :o

best regards -

mqqn

 

What PSI were you running? If you are running less then 30-32 psi your front tires will wear out on the inside while driving aggressively.

 

Look carefully at the toe setting

If your toe setting has slipped as a result of the bushings moving around (the upper rubber bushings on the control arms have a habit of moving as a result of heavy braking). The 04 control arms cure this problem and if you complain

If this throws your toe to toe out you are going to eat tires. If the car had a tendency to dart on ruts or grooves on the pavemet you most definately have some toe out. Most folks running serious autocross are using some small amount of toe out (to get agressive turn in and corner entry rotation) and they are going to eat up some tires. The relatively small amount of negative camber in the stock Z06 isn't going to make a big difference on wear, you will get to the bottom of the tread a bit sooner, but the tire is going to be pretty much worn out all over by that time. If you have pretty good tread on the ouside and wear on the inside you have an alignment problem.