I had new tires put on my 2005 Z51 vert today. Went with the Firestone Wide Oval run flats: great price, very nice looking, we'll see how they perform. Anyway, my stock Goodyear Supercars were not worn badly (18,500 miles) except for the passenger side front, which was almost bald on the inside edge, and pretty worn elsewhere as well in comparison to the other front tire. So I decided to have this Firestone store do an alignment. They said they had done Vettes before. What they found was the driver's side front to be out of alignment, but all three others were good. I asked the tech how that could be, because the tire that was badly worn was in almost perfect alignment and the front tire with normal wear was out of alignment. He said it was from compensation. In other words, the worn tire went bad because it was compensating for the other side being out of alignment.
Does this sound right to any one familiar with alignment issues, or is this guy BS'ing me? Could there be something else going on that caused that tire to wear differently than the others? Any help would be appreciated, as I am trying to avoid the same wear pattern on my new tires. I've been pretty good about maintaining tire pressure - I average 28 psi cold, heat up pretty fast in this weather (San Diego) and get to 32 PSI in no time. So I don't worry too much about them being 2 psi low when cold. Thanks for any help!!

 

They should have given you a readout of your before and after settings. I would recommend these settings from forum vendor Pfadt Racing.....

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

 

If you want an expert alignment analysis from a Corvette specialist,take it over to Kushan at Excelsior Motorsports,
5555 Magnatron Blvd, Ste L, San Diego, 92111. 858-565-8000.
He set up my alignment and is the best. All he does is Corvettes.

 

He could be right, or he could be just guessing. Did you get a before/after printout? That would be very helpful in offering advice on what the problem may have been, or if you need to make changes. But going to a place like that, when they say the other wheels were "good", what they really mean is "good enough for them to stop adjusting".

 

any particular reason you're running 28 lbs. cold?

 

No. Honestly, I'm a little lazy when it comes to putting air in the tires, and the pressure always seems to stabilize around 28psi on the DIC.
So I figure 28 is only 2 psi off and don't worry about it. I know, I know...not very smart :bb

 

Thanks. The settings on the print-out they gave me seem to be quite different, but I'm not really sure how to interpret them. I think I'm going to take the car to a Corvette alignment specialist as recommended by Sub Vette

 

The camber settings look pretty aggressive to me if you are just driving on the street. Camber more than about -1/8 deg will give you inside tire wear. Mine came with -1 deg, and I noticed tire wear at 1000 miles.

 

You will be glad that you did.You won't find a more honest and technically competent person anywhere else.