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Old 09-06-2011, 07:44 PM   #1
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Slight inner tire wear

My question is about tire wear.

I have an 03 boxster S with aftermarket 19 inch wheels, lowered on eibach springs and blistein shocks. The car has been aligned but there is a little bit more tire wear on the inside than the outside.

Is this normal for a sports car? Or should there be perfect tire wear. Also, since tires cost so much, I figure it would be worth while to have my tires flipped to increase tread life, thoughts?

Thanks

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Old 09-06-2011, 09:13 PM   #2
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More inner tire wear is completely normal and expected due to the negative camber in the stock alignment spec. This improves handling in corners but increases inner tire wear.

And yes, swapping tires and rims can help to even out the wear across the tire to some extent. Alternatively, you can also ask a shop to align the car to be neutral in camber but you'll trade off some cornering performance.
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Old 09-07-2011, 02:17 AM   #3
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Lowering the car increases camber. With the springs you have, you will not be able to dial negative camber out sufficiently to eliminate the uneven wear without an adjustable strut pearch. Even then, I'm not sure you'd be able to get enough angle dialed out of the strut. Also, the stiffer sidewall of those 19's are not giving as much as the 18 or 17's would, so there is more load on the inner sidewall than on smaller diameter wheels.

Rotating tires is always a good idea, but expensive and not always possible. Your goal is to make the outside sidewall move to the inside Some tires have an "outside" marker on the sidewall. These won't let you do the swap you need. Directionals and symmetric tires will..
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Old 10-26-2011, 11:01 AM   #4
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I'm having this same problem. I have pretty much new tires and just wore the right front inner to the point of no tread and deflation. I was told I need to be able to adjust by 4 not the 2 on the current setup. They recommended some kind of "aftermarket strut part whatever that means". I'm pretty clueless when it comes to suspension but need to get this fixed so I don't kill anymore tires or myself. Any recommendations?
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Old 10-26-2011, 03:10 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Earn View Post
I'm having this same problem. I have pretty much new tires and just wore the right front inner to the point of no tread and deflation. I was told I need to be able to adjust by 4 not the 2 on the current setup. They recommended some kind of "aftermarket strut part whatever that means". I'm pretty clueless when it comes to suspension but need to get this fixed so I don't kill anymore tires or myself. Any recommendations?
Just one tire? That's an alignment problem.
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Old 10-26-2011, 03:43 PM   #6
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Just one tire? That's an alignment problem.
Yea. I got it aligned but he said they got it as close to camber as possible but with the current set but its still not perfectly in the middle. He also said its toed as much as possible as well. It was lowered by the previous owner and they also said the rear was fine as well as the car had a lot of suspension work done to it. The alignment was def off. This was looked at and aligned at Kauffman tire. They are a tire place not what Id call a specialist so maybe it was bad advice. I plan on contacting a local Porsche tuning shop tomorrow.

Last edited by Earn; 10-26-2011 at 03:45 PM. Reason: Spellin
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Old 10-26-2011, 05:19 PM   #7
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I'm not a Boxster "expert" but I have owned two and never had any uneven tire wear regardless of tire type. Unless you are completely confident in your tire person's ability, I would take it to another shop. You may have a racing suspension installed which would have a different camber set than a street set up. If so, unless you want to frequently replace tires, I would change the suspension to a set up more in line with your intended use for the car.
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Old 10-26-2011, 06:14 PM   #8
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Thanks for the help. I def think a second opinion is in order. I like the lowered look but I want to make sure Im not doing damage with the setup. Ill report back what I find out.

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