Here's the deal. At about 16,000 miles my rear S-02s were almost to the wear indicators and I was hydroplaning on the expressways so I decided to buy S-03s for the rears. Now I have about 22,000 and the insides of my S-02s (fronts) are bald so I need to replace them. I was checking my S-03s (rears) and found that I have between 1/10th - 2/10ths left of tread on them before the wear indicators! It's only been 6,000 miles! I never spin the tires, I never drift. What's the deal? Have other people experienced this?

Thanks for your feedback.
Dan

 

YES! I noticed this also. My rear S-03's are balder than Telly Savalas, and it happened quickly. I also don't drive too nuts.

The wear has surprised me so much that I am thinking about just getting S-02's in my size - 255/50/17, since they can't wear any faster than the S-03's. See my thread here:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/showthread.php?...threadid=133076

Jim is having his people check the size...

 

Yep, me too. With 9-10000 miles on a set of 245/45 SO-3's, I had a swath about 4 inches across the MIDDLE of my tires that were completely smooth. Not to the wear bars, completely smooth. And this was with rear tire pressure at 26-27 psi. Granted, the last few hundred miles of use were extremely abusive, but in short: yes, it is normal for SO-3's to wear just as fast or faster than the stock SO-2's.

 

Bald S-03's, chicken strip style.

click the picture to zoom in...

 

get your alignment checked...

it's the toe in in the rear that causes the wear not how much drifting you do or whatever... I would have thought everyone knew this by now...

 

Nate, thanks. The car was aligned about 2 months ago, with these wheels/tires, at the shop that preps Wei-Shen Chin's race cars.

But, I'll check it again...

 

chiung,

having your car aligned at a race shop will provide a very good "handling" alignment (they're in the "go-fast" business).

they may not have considered tire wear when doing your alignment......

this has happened to me in the past.

in my case, when i questioned the race shop, the reply was "if you want a conservative alignment, take it to the dealer, because you're not gonna get it from us".....

just thought i'd throw that out there.....

 

Thanks PLYRS 3, I'll get the alignment checked, and also find the alignment specs I have. I think my post was a little misleading, the shop is a regular "civilian" garage, although they are biased towards performance cars and also happen to prep Formula Mazda's, NSX's, and S2000's for track duty.

I didn't specify to the tech that I would be tracking the car, so I assumed he would have done a street alignment. But I guess I should check.

Any other people with short S-03 life have "correct" street alignments?

 

The Honda spec for the toe in has a wide spread and still be within spec. You would want the rear toe in to be at 4mm. The OE spec is 6mm +- 2mm. At 8mm you are still within spec but you get no tread life.

Jim

 

Interesting. My alignment was also "within spec" but I don't remember what the toe spec was. I'll have to go see if I can find the printout.