Bad Tire Wear - 4mo wagon

[VR]

problem: inside of front and rear tires are wearing quickly (after 10k miles)

setup: KW V1 coilovers, 19x8.5 et35 with 235/35/19 Falken 452

The alignment is very good I can post the specs if needed. My alignment shop just said to rotate front to back and swap tires to opposite sides also. I can say I will not be buying Falken tires ever again, they wear SUPER fast on my GTI too (912's).

Has anyone else had this issue with a lowered 4motion? I am not sure what to do, if there is anything...

[qwkbrk]

problem: inside of front and rear tires are wearing quickly (after 10k miles)

setup: KW V1 coilovers, 19x8.5 et35 with 235/35/19 Falken 452

The alignment is very good I can post the specs if needed. My alignment shop just said to rotate front to back and swap tires to opposite sides also. I can say I will not be buying Falken tires ever again, they wear SUPER fast on my GTI too (912's).

Has anyone else had this issue with a lowered 4motion? I am not sure what to do, if there is anything...

Is it even wear? In other words, no feathering or cupping?

Inside wear is generally from too much negative camber or toe-in. At your next alignment, you can request either or both to be adjusted closer to zero, but within tolerance.

As alignment shop stated, rotating side to side helps. But you can't just swap wheels side to side because of the directional tread pattern. You would have to have them dismounted and mounted.

300 treadwear rating for a tire of that type is pretty good, so improving on that will be slim pickings.

[VR]

Is it even wear? In other words, no feathering or cupping?

Inside wear is generally from too much negative camber or toe-in. At your next alignment, you can request either or both to be adjusted closer to zero, but within tolerance.

As alignment shop stated, rotating side to side helps. But you can't just swap wheels side to side because of the directional tread pattern. You would have to have them dismounted and mounted.

300 treadwear rating for a tire of that type is pretty good, so improving on that will be slim pickings.

The falkens just seem to wear very very fast, I have had Kumho's and Dunlop's last much longer with the same treadwear.

It is not even wear it is feathered on the inside of all 4 tires. The front was around a -1.2 and -.9 and rear was all around - 2 to 2.5, I was told this is all close to factory.

[BsickPassat]

The falkens just seem to wear very very fast, I have had Kumho's and Dunlop's last much longer with the same treadwear.

It is not even wear it is feathered on the inside of all 4 tires. The front was around a -1.2 and -.9 and rear was all around - 2 to 2.5, I was told this is all close to factory.

feathering points to worn suspension parts. Sounds like you need new strut mount/bearing & shock mounts.

Alignment specs in FAQ. You are no where near close to factory.

[VR]

I think I may need new strut bearings but nothing else should be worn other than that.

Here are the actual specs from the sheet.

front left

camber -1.2, caster 7.8, toe .04

front right

camber -0.8, caster 7.5, toe .05

rear left

camber -2.3, toe -0.11

rear right

camber -1.9, toe .19

Rear

cross camber 0.4, total toe .09, trust angle -.15

[iTech]

You really can't use that chart to compare to yours. The chart posted above is in minutes and seconds....your measurements are in degrees. Anyway...your numbers look fine. The issue it that when you go to such a low pro tire you lose the inherent ability for the tire to "squirm"..in other words the tire is just too stiff to move in it's normal fashion under load and moving down the road.

[BsickPassat]

You really can't use that chart to compare to yours. The chart posted above is in minutes and seconds....your measurements are in degrees. Anyway...your numbers look fine. The issue it that when you go to such a low pro tire you lose the inherent ability for the tire to "squirm"..in other words the tire is just too stiff to move in it's normal fashion under load and moving down the road.

You missed some of the specs that have degrees.

Instead of decimals, yes, minutes is used.

It takes a little math to figure out the decimals, but 60 minutes = 1 degree.

So, to translate the chart, Sport suspension w/ 18" wheels.
Front:
camber = -0.683° + 0.5°
caster = 7.733° + 0.5°
toe = 0.167° + 0.167°

Rear:
camber = -1.75° + 0.5°
toe = 0.167° + 0.167°

[iTech]

Ya I forgot how easy the conversion was. Lol. Was kinda reading and posting while shopping.


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[VR]

mine is still within the limits, maybe .1 over on 2 corners

[qwkbrk]

OP, can you post a photo of your tire wear?

[VR]

OP, can you post a photo of your tire wear?

[VR]

still at a lost for this, if its within factory settings...i dont see why the wear is so bad. my gti ate thru a set of falkens too, I also have a friend who ran them on a stock passat and the insides wore out super fast

[SWES2006]

camber wear = something is WRONG 4 sure ....... thats typical Camber wear

[VR]

camber wear = something is WRONG 4 sure ....... thats typical Camber wear

i run blizzaks in the winter and they wear 100% correct

[VR]

is there anything in the REAR that could be worn causing this?

i was planning on replacing the strut mounts and bearings in the front

[Berta06]

it did this to my summer tires aswell... finished the inside completly!! (so much that the mesh was coming out on the inside but outside was good for atleast an other summer) turns out its the way that the passat sits and pushes on my tires said the professional tireman (i have no clue what to call him) when was the last time you got your car aligned?

[B64MO]

There's very limited rear camber adjustment on these plus your running a wide tire. I've never found a camber kit. Rotate often...

[virad]

My tires are wearing the same after putting on DG springs on 2.0T.

I think it has to do with the suspension geometry. Now that the car is lowered, the way the tire camber increases with the suspension travel is much more exaggerated at full load/compression compared to stock suspension at full load. So every time you hit a big bump, you're wearing down the inside of your tires.

Can anyone verify this?

[VR]

Rotate often...

when was the last time you got your car aligned?

its hard to rotate a uni-directional tire on a 4mo car, only way to do it is to dismount the tires and remount to the opposite side.

the alignment is perfect I have had it checked now 2 times on a digital rack

[VR]

also my blizzaks on the oem 17in wheels wore very badly also over the winter months, just not AS bad as the falkens being the falkens are super soft and the blizzaks are hard

[VR]

also my blizzaks on the oem 17in wheels wore very badly also over the winter months, just not AS bad as the falkens being the falkens are super soft and the blizzaks are hard

bringing this back up...going to be putting new tires on soon and I really don't want to blow through another set of tires in 10k miles

I may go to a different alignment shop and replace the front strut mounts/bearings

anything in the rear that could cause the same problem?

[qwkbrk]

Inside wear suggests too much negative camber or too much toe in. Perhaps ask the alignment shop to adjust camber as much positive as the specification allows. You could also ask them to align toe in as close to zero as the specification allows.

The Falkens you showed have a directional tread pattern. Perhaps consider a tire without directional tread pattern so that you can mount them inside out (so to speak) as you rotate them and extend the life of them. The old tires on my V70 R showed accelerated wear on the inside, so I had the tire shop mount them inside out to prolong the life. It provided me another 10k miles or so.

Also, you mentioned in a few posts about your experience with Falkens wearing prematurely. I don't have experience with Falkens, so I am not sure what to suggest there, other than try a different brand/model. What is on your shopping list for your next set of summer tires?

My V70 R is a 3800 lb AWD wagon. The rear camber is not adjustable. For those R owners that have lowered their cars, a solution to adjust the rear camber to prevent such accelerate tire wear is to install eccentric bushings such as these:

[VR]

do those mount in the control arms?

i was looking at something really cheap as far as tires goes this time around just bc know its going to be a challenge getting the car aligned again and trying different things to see how they wear

i have 235 35 19 right now....i was looking at 225 ironman or federal

[Bleser]

My stock setup (sport suspension, 18" Samarkands) feathered badly on the inside of the rear tires (Pirelli P6 4Seasons) so I had it aligned by VW and put some Continental Touring tires (super quiet) but sold them before noticing if I still had the wear problem. Now 10k into my Continental ContiProContact DWS 19" tires and DG springs/sport shocks I see the feathering again. I'm going to rotate my tires this weekend but it seems to be a common Passat flaw to feather the inside of the rear tires. Drives me nuts.

[VR]

My stock setup (sport suspension, 18" Samarkands) feathered badly on the inside of the rear tires (Pirelli P6 4Seasons) so I had it aligned by VW and put some Continental Touring tires (super quiet) but sold them before noticing if I still had the wear problem. Now 10k into my Continental ContiProContact DWS 19" tires and DG springs/sport shocks I see the feathering again. I'm going to rotate my tires this weekend but it seems to be a common Passat flaw to feather the inside of the rear tires. Drives me nuts.

but you have no problems with the fronts?

[VR]

So a friend told me toyo, nitto, and neogen have tires that are designed for negative camber with reinforced edges so they do not cup. Anyone else heard this?

[low_passat]

So a friend told me toyo, nitto, and neogen have tires that are designed for negative camber with reinforced edges so they do not cup. Anyone else heard this?

Neogen is the model name made by Nitto.

Haven't experienced them other than a friend just put them on his bagged GTI.

http://www.discounttiredirect.com/di...%2FPerformance

[VR]

Neogen is the model name made by Nitto.

Haven't experienced them other than a friend just put them on his bagged GTI.

http://www.discounttiredirect.com/di...%2FPerformance

i realized that after I posted

[Bleser]

but you have no problems with the fronts?

I'll hopefully confirm that today. I'll take photos of all four.

[VR]

here is what toyo and nitto have on the two tires

http://www.nittotire.com/index.html#index.tire.neogen

http://toyotires.com/tire/pattern/pr...e-summer-tires

[Boosted2003!]

Passats do have an issue with feathering for some reason. I started to rotate my tires every 2500 miles. So far it really has helped with keeping them wear even.

[VR]

Passats do have an issue with feathering for some reason. I started to rotate my tires every 2500 miles. So far it really has helped with keeping them wear even.

what a pain....

when you say rotate do you mean dismount the tires and put the insides on the outsides or just front to back?

I would think just rotating them front to back or even corner to corner if you did not have a uni-directional tire would serve no point at all

[Bleser]

Rotated my tires yesterday and I didn't bother taking photos because there was actually no obvious flawed tire wear as I thought. Fronts had 8/32nds and rears 9/32nds, so swapping front to back will help even that out but all in all I was happy to not see major feathering.

I think the hard tire compound of the DWS all-season tire may help avoid the inner wear/feathering.

[mexglx]

Bought my car in Mar'10 as a CPO car. Its a '07 Passat Wagon FWD. I had some noise in the rear turned out to be feathered tires on the inner edge. Had new tires on the front. Thery were all OE Goodyear Eagle LS2 235/45R17. I rotated the tires and aligned the car. Figured the alignment killed the fronts and featehred the rears. Almost unbearable noise after rotating them. Still left the originals up front hoping to wear some of the feathering off. I rotated them after 10K miles and the noise went to the back and sounded A LOT better. Re-aligned the car and asked for the alignment spec and report this time to see how off it was before and after this second alignment. The Toe was way off. The caster is at its limits of being good. Actually the RF caster is just in the red by a tenth of a degree. They got the toe fixed but the caster is still off. Any ideas on caster adjustment? Do they just loosen the strut tops and shim them forward or back a little?

[VR]

I think the hard tire compound of the DWS all-season tire may help avoid the inner wear/feathering.

not true, i ran blizzaks on my stock 17in wheels in the winter and they feathered and wore insides also, not as fast as the falkens but still fairly bad