I took my wheels off today to inspect my brakes for an upcoming track event and was happy to find them all in good order.

However, I noticed that the RF tyre (OEM S-02 16'') had rather interesting wear. Most of the tread still had 7mm remaining evenly, but the blocks and sections around 2 inches from the inner edge were severely worn and very obvious visually! Odd that the extreme inner edge wasn't, though.

Alignment problems? Defective tyre? The car drives and brakes in a straight line otherwise.

If I do replace the front tyres, will I have to go with 2 new ones or will 1 suffice? Both still have nearly the full tread remaining otherwise.

///Robin

 

Moving to Tire forum.

 

I had the same problem, the outside 5 inches of the tire were fine, but the inside 2 inches were wore completely. I had noticed that side was sitting low, so I took it to the dealer. They replaced both right side dampers and springs under warrenty, and the car sits level now. I'll still have to wait until I replace the tires to see it it fixed it or not. But check to see if your car is sitting level, you may have a blown shock like mine.

 

My wear on the inner edge is normal, but it's just severely worn 2 inches from the edge.

Car is level and suspension feels in pretty good order (was also just in for scheduled maintenance)

///Robin

 

If it's only a tire on one side, by your description, it may be a defect in the tire construction. I have seen this before. It is caused by the failure of some of the steel plies that run around the circumference of the tire in that part of the tread.

 

I took a picture of the RF tyre for you to see. Notice the worn areas all around the tyre's circumference about an inch from the inner edge that appear as round spots in the picture. Turns out that the LF tyre has similar wear pattern (worn out near, but not at, inside edge). Now I'm guessing it's a camber issue. I haven't had the alignment changed and I hadn't noticed this problem with a previous set of Dunlop SP9000s.

Tyre pressures are set at the recommended 2.2bar (32psi) for street or 36 psi for the track. These tyres have around 1300km track use on them.

The tyres have 7mm tread left in most areas, nearly new. The outsides and inside shoulders are more rounded from track use. The severely affected areas are down to 2mm or less.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TrueDrezzer
Turns out that the LF tyre has similar wear pattern (worn out near, but not at, inside edge).
Tyre pressures are set at the recommended 2.2bar (32psi) for street or 36 psi for the track.

 

Well, I stated in my original post that I was preparing for a track event, so really the only new information is that when I took the picture, I double-checked the LF tyre and found that it had, in fact, similar wear. No need to get head-banging mad at me!

Guess I should put the 1300km into perspective. The distance isn't that much considering the track I run (Nurburgring) is too dangerous to get as close to the limits as with modern tracks. I'd say it's about the equivalent of 1-2 trackdays at driving school events.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has encountered this kind of wear. I wonder why my Dunlops didn't suffer the same fate.

Cheers,
///Robin

 

I can't see the pictures. S02s will chunk rather easily with track duty. Since I can't see what the wear looks like, I have no idea if this is what you're seeing.

 

Something odd about linking from "Geocities". Right click on the blank photo, click on "properties", highlight the URL, copy and paste into the Address bar and you should be able to see it. Then, when you "BACK" to this thread, it shows up in the thread.
It looks like "cupping" but evenly spaced all the way around the tire.