Shawn S

My 2006 coupe only has 6,800 miles on it.
Treadwear is great, but the front tires are severely cupping.
It’s got the Z51 supercar tires on it.
It’s causing a vibration through the steering wheel at anything over 50 MPH.

At the suggestion of my local dealer I took it to Goodyear for an inspection.
They saw the problem and measured 7/32 of tread remaining. Tires are 9/32 when new.
At less then 7K miles they have only 25% wear on them so they should be good for 20,000+ miles.

I’m still within 12mo and 12,000 miles so I’m hoping for a 100% replacement here.
The Goodyear place couldn’t check the alignment because they were worried about scratching the rims so I have to take it back to the dealer for that. Appointment is for Friday.
After that’s checked it will be decided if Goodyear or GM is fixing this.

Any other suggestions?
Has anyone else gone through this in the first year w/ relatively low miles?
Should I accept a prorated 50-75% credit or push for 100% reimbursement?

Thanks,
Shawn S

sscamaro

You probably need the front end aligned. Mine is the same way. I have almost 22K mies on the Super Car tires. I will need need new tires in the spring, so I'll get the front end aligned at that time.

BigGeek

Z51 GY RunFlats are rated for only 10K miles!

If you have cupping in the center and NOT shoulder wear then you probably are overinflatting your tires. Go and check the pressure.

If the wear pattern is uneven then you have an out of alignment suspension component most likely. (Or it could be a bad tire that wasn't formed properly at the factory)

AP

I find that hard to believe ... 10K miles??? Source?

ED HEISER

It is not written in stone how long these tires will last, it depends on the type of driving. Under hard use, 10K is not unusual. Easy freeway miles could result in 22K. These are a soft compound tire, and anything from under inflation by a few pounds to a slight misalignment will show up much faster than on a harder compound tire. So you may end up with a bad tire with a good amount of tread left. Good luck with a replacement tire at the dealer, let us know what happens.

djfullshred

For what it's worth, Tire Rack gives these tires 3.3 out of 10 for tire wear. Goodyear does not give them a specific mileage gaurantee for tread life as far as I can find. Bottom line is they are not made to give you a lot of miles, but some people have reported doubling the 10,000 mile mark with them.

mickeykelley

So what are people replacing them with. The same tire or something else and how are they lasting/performing? I am used to getting 60,000+ on my Suburban or Avalanche. This could be expensive driving! I may have to reconsider my decision to buy.

Mickey

06.Z51.MontRed.Vert

I got approx 8500 miles on mine. I drive the car hard, but I don't kill it with smokey burnouts etc. Rears were worn out to the wear bars, fronts had a small amount of life left.

I changed out to BFG KDW-2's. They aren't run flats but vastly better in all aspects.

vetdude

cupping = alignment

you're probably "scrubbing" the tires going down the road like this / \

From www.ask.com:

Chevrolet, for example, issued a technical service bulletin (#86-90) that recommended resetting the toe to zero to cure an outer shoulder wear/cupping problem caused by excessive toe-in on 1985 & '86 Caprice, Monte Carlo and light trucks.

BigGeek

You have to pay to play. To get all that grip you need a very soft compound. Hence the tires wear down faster. (A lot faster!) Every time I come home after some good driving, I have rubber plastered all over the rear wheel well and hubs. It's about $.15/mile on the tires. Hence forth why I only drive mine 10K a year.

Luckily BFG and several others make cheaper replacements that supposidly handle better for less $$$. They are however not run flats.

60K on a vette tire. Thanks for the laugh!

BigGeek

If the wear pattern is from the center outward, it's a toe in issue. If it's just the center of the tire, then it's most likely over inflation.

LTC Z06

Well don't road race or auto-x. I went through 4 sets of tires and brakes in less than 20,000 miles.

Whiterock1

Sounds like toe is out--cupped outside too negative; inside, too positive. I can't believe a tire dealer won't do an alignment! The car drives onto a flat rack, generally. Then gets raised from there.

mickeykelley

I did not mean to make you laugh. I just thought that if you are going as fast as everyone says that you get a slight air cushion between the tires and the road so you would actually wear out the air instead of the rubber on the tires. Plus a vette is considerably lighter than a Suburban. I ran the factory Suburban tires 80,000 and the nice shiny metal strips were only showing on the one front tire.

Shawn S

10K…No way.
I read here about people getting 20K or more out of a set if they don’t “smoke em up” every chance they get.

The wear pattern of the “cups” is even across the entire face of the tire.
Maybe slightly worse on the outer edges.
And it’s exactly mirrored on the other side of the car.
The rear tires are perfect.
I don’t think it can be blamed on high or low pressure.
Pressure is maintained at 30-31 cold and checked with a digital gauge at least every other week.

Shawn S

Yes, but they have to mount an alignment device onto each wheel to check the four corners and measure the adjustments.

Some attach to the outside of a rim and some attach to the inside.
If they don’t have the proper tips, it could scratch a chrome rim.

Whiterock1

Yeah, I guess that's true, but you would think a major brand tire retailer would have the necessary equipment. When I had tires mounted by a Goodyear dealer, thru Tire Rack, on my Trans Am, he had everything you could think of to safeguard the highly polished al rims I had.

ED HEISER

Yes, it is expensive to drive a Corvette, or any high performance car for that matter. Tires, brakes, service, depreciation, insurance, DMV, ect. I'm surprised you are so taken aback by this that you would reconsider owning a Corvette. Many people use this car sparringly due to these expenses. But owning one is so grand, I feel the expense is quite warranted, and cheap compared to other exotics.

Shawn S

Well, here’s an update:

I took the car to my local dealer for a 4-wheel alignment last Friday.
It was slightly off, but not nearly enough to cause the wear I was seeing.
They brought the numbers back into spec and sent me back to the tire store.

Back to the Goodyear….
The manager submitted the claim to GY home office and said they’d get back to me in two days with a decision.
They argued that tire cupping was more of a “driving annoyance” and wasn’t really covered by the warranty.
Retail on the Supercar fronts is 465 each and their first offer was to replace the tires for 167 EACH based on 2/32 of wear and 7K miles.
I objected to that offer and told them to do better.

They called back today and offered 92 dollars each installed & balanced.
I took that offer and they ordered the two front tires.

I guess that’s a fair resolution since I did get about a years worth of mileage out of them.
Did I do good?

Shawn S

Hoonose

I always thought cupping was a shock absorber problem....

http://www.kaltire.com/commercial/me...es/cupping.php

http://www.partsamerica.com/MaintenanceTireProblem.aspx