Hi there! Why not register as a user to enjoy all of the benefits of the site? You may register here. When you register, please pick a username that is non-commercial. If you use a name that appears on any search engine commercially, you must pick another name, whether it applies to you or not. Commercial usernames are for supporting vendor use only. If you want to become a supporting vendor and grow your business, please follow this link. Thanks!
Two of my friends and I have been getting weird tire wear in the rear. Only the middle of the tire is bald with quite a bit left on both corners.
I run around -2.5 deg camber, toe settings I don't have a number, but it's slightly toe in. Tire pressure around 25psi.
Street driven in a mild manner.
Any idea?
When I experienced that problem on my 06 Exige, it was a combination of over inflation and horrible alignment. It was mostly the latter, the alignment acted like a cheese grater to the middle portion of the tire. So I'd certainly check on both.
How would the alignment cause that? Im assuming you mean toe settings. Camber should only increase wear on the inside of the tire.
Correct me if Im wrong, but I thought Toe in will wear the outsides of the tires and toe out will do the opposite.
When I experienced that problem on my 06 Exige, it was a combination of over inflation and horrible alignment. It was mostly the latter, the alignment acted like a cheese grater to the middle portion of the tire. So I'd certainly check on both.
You rotating tires at all? I ran 4 sessions on r888s on the same corners and had the "groove of doom." Just have to remember to rotate...tire direction does not matter when it's dry.
You can get center wear from under inflation too. The center of the contact patch can squirm and resonate due to the low center loading and wear in a pattern resembling over inflation. I would go up a few pounds, especially your buddy running in the low 20psi range.
A search will reveal that this topic has been covered dozens of times with the general consensus being that the indicated pressures on the door will typically cause a pair of AO48s to wear in the middle. I’ve gone through probably 10 sets of rear tires (AO48s) and always run my pressures lower for more even wear.
Tire pressure is the common answer to center wear. However, in this case on the rear of an Elise, Exige (or even Europa and Esprit) it is caused by too much toe-in. As a previous post suggested by the alignment checked. It's highly likely you'll find there's nearly 1/4" of toe at the rear. Great for keeping the rear end stable, but terrible on tire wear.
Cheers,
Kiyoshi
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
The Lotus Cars Community
2.7M posts
51.5K members
Since 2002
A forum community dedicated to all Lotus owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about performance, modifications, troubleshooting, maintenance, and more!