Andrew77

How would you know you need an alignment? It's often suggested to get it after a new set of tires, but not necessarily needed.

I ask because I got a blown tire today and changed all four to a set of BFG G-Force Sports.

I started feeling a pull to the right earlier during that session of driving but thought of it as road condition and went on. Eventually the tire popped and the wheel pulled right. When I saw it, inside (for about two centimeters) was pretty bald. The reason for the pop/flat seemed to be a nail and/or low pressure. However, I "re-pressurized" properly (in the cold without driving to 35psi) only a month ago. The entire sidewall on the inside was ripped, probably 'cause it took me a while to pull over to the right (I was in the fast lane).

There was no pull to the right (or left) before this incident. As far as I'm aware, normal cars should wear on the outside first, so I'd assume alignment would have to be PRETTY BAD for tires to wear on the inside.

Also, I'm at about 47k+ miles on an '04. I don't know if an alignment's been done from the previous owner... what do you guys (and possibly girls) think?

ahrmike

No! our cars wear on the inside first - at least for the back tires. We have mean toe-in to prevent the back end from sliding around, which results in the inside wearing out first.

Also, if you're dropped the insides will deff wear out first sicne its cambered. I think OEM spec rec's a few degrees of negative camber which = inside wears out first as well.

negcamber

I always though toe out caused the insides to wear about 2-3 inches from the inner sidewall.

Anyway...Andrew, if you are getting unusual wear on the tires like you describe, then an alignment is in order. Unless you are autoxing or tracking, your front toe should be zero. You may have a bit of toe in at the rear, but you won't see a dramatic difference in tire wear with that.

Camber should be about -1deg front and -2deg for a fairly aggressive street driver. That amount of rear negative camber will cause more tire wear from the inside out, but it should be fairly gradual and not heavy wear on the inside.