ZDan

Really?

Excessive rear toe will greatly exacerbate wear, *whatever other issues there may be*. Overinflation at 40psi is of course a *part* of the issue, but since his fronts were also at 40psi and wear rate is apparently OK there, my money's still on toe.

That's right. TOE is a critical factor. Much more so than camber, much more so than being 8psi overinflated.

If toe-in is excessive, wear rate goes up dramatically, whatever surfaces are being driven on or driving style.

I recommended having the alignment checked. If rear toe is toward the max end of the range, I'd have it knocked down to the minimum end of the range if tire life is a concern (obviously it is).

What *should* mean something to you is that for similar usage, my rear tire life much more than doubled merely by changing rear toe from max spec to something less than min spec.

BTW, I once ran a set of Dunlop SportMaxx TT rears down, evenly across the tread, in less than 4k miles, with one 2-day track event. I had noticed that the handling was pretty screwy at the track and on the street. The problem? The rear toe adjustment screws hadn't been tightened sufficiently and walked around, giving me 1.05degrees total rear toe!

Overinflation will give the observed wear pattern, but wear *rate* from overinflation at 40psi isn't going to be tremendously greater than at 32-34psi. You might lose ~5-10% tire life. As opposed to underinflation, which will reduce tire life far more significantly.
And, again, wear rate for the also-overinflated-to-40psi fronts doesn't appear to be an issue.

Excess rear toe-in, however, can easily cut tire life in half, or worse!

The reason you're seeing so many S2kers with 2:1 wear is that many people are running at the higher end of spec rear toe-in, or WORSE, running the ridiculously high UK spec (which is essentially the max AP1 spec, or .67deg total).


OP, if you do get your toe checked, please report back here! I don't know the factory settings for AP2, but for AP1 the range is ~0.33deg minimum, 0.67deg max. In any case, it will be a pretty big range, so there's no such thing as "stock factory alignment", really.
Again, I'd go with the *minimum* spec rear toe. Or less, even!

GT Motoring

Every tire is going to wear different on every car. For instance, when I worked at Continental, it was a known fact that the DWS didn't wear well on the rear of a BMW. Or the General Altimax HP didn't wear well on the Malibu, the Altimax RT didn't fair well on the heavier Odyssey Van, and the Contitrac Didn't wear well on the Ford Escape. Sometimes the combination of a vehicle and a certain tire just don't mix well.

There are a large, large number of factors.

Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how excessive toe can cause the most wear on only the center of the tire while leaving the edges untouched. Maybe if he had a ton of camber, and way way way off toe...MAYBE, but having had the tires on for 17k miles, I doubt thats the case.

When looking at the inner vs. the outer edges, I don't think any knowledgeable alignment tech, shop owner, etc that I've talked to would point their finger at toe settings for a wear issue only affecting the center of the tire.

For all we know, the DW has a softer carcas which makes it more susceptible to over-inflation wear problems. Maybe it's an issue with the tires themselves. I've seen all sorts of things working in the industry.

As for the RS3s, how do you explain that fact that I run very, very similar toe settings on my S that you do on yours, yet I've gotten 1/3 the life?

GT Motoring

https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/767...in-the-center/

To be quite honest, 17k miles is decent lift IMO.

s2000Junky

I totally agree. Sounds to me like it was just a simple oversight with tire pressure. 40 cold is 8-10psi higher then you typically would want to run. If the tire was worn in the middle, and we know 40 psi was used, then clearly lowering tire pressure would have used up the full width of the tire with no difference in alignment. Its not worth beating a dead horse over, its pretty simple and obvious.

s2000Junky

Oh dear, looks like zdan is on another Toe Tirade

I've discovered that through Dans miraculous achievements in the quest for the perfect wheel alignment, that its his understanding that we should all run very little to no rear toe regardless of circumstances. Rear toe is always the issue, if you’re running some.

Just picking on you Dan, but seriously I think the toe phenomenon might be starting to cloud your vision just a little bit buddy.

ZDan

Agreed. In my experience with the S2000, toe is the #1 factor affecting rear tire life.

That's not what he described. Middle worn the most, inside worn less, outside worn least. No description of the edges as "untouched".

What he describes is very similar to what I got with -2 rear camber and 0.67 total rear toe.

If they know their stuff, they will *consider* toe as being a contributor.

I know that 99% of them would look at a case of greater inside wear than outside wear as "too much camber", but the fact is that while "too much camber" on the order of 2deg will knock about 15% off the life of an s2000's rear tires, too much rear toe on the order of 0.67deg total will cut life in half or worse.

Then I'm surprised you haven't established toe as a *primary* candidate as a contributor to accelerated wear.

You said yourself, different usages on different surfaces can give radically different tire life. My RS-3s have only seen one dry track day and one wet track day, and I drive like a granny on the street (most of the time).

Under *identical* usage (my highway commute plus a couple to four track days), I have experimentally found STRONG correlation between rear toe setting and rear tire life. Some of the "experiment" was blind, too (i.e., toe change I was unaware of).

Toe *is* a big-time rear tire killer. I'm not saying that it's definitely the culprit here, which is why I recommended getting it *checked* and going from there.

s2000Junky

Good grief

ZDan

Not at all. Anyone who enjoys nonlinear handling and GREATLY accelerated tire wear, go ahead and run big rear toe numbers.

Anyone interested in reducing rear tire wear and improving handling and driveability, listen to me...

Too many people are overly fixated on the tread wear pattern and not on the tire wear rate. The wear pattern is a hint, but for most types of wear including "camber wear" and "overinflation wear", the obvious conclusions don't necessarily tell the whole story. Excessive toe-in will tremendously exaggerate the wear rate.

I'd much rather have asymmetric "camber" wear at 20k miles life running 2 degrees of camber and minimal toe than have even wear and <10k miles of life running 2deg camber and the absurd UK 0.67deg rear toe.

aCab

ZDan, you're right about tire wear and handling in regards to rear toe, but a wear issue such as this is not evident of a toe issue. It sounds like a combination of typical s2000 wear pattern for a street driven car driven gently, and higher than optimal tire pressure over time.

That being said, OP, 17k miles is not out of the ordinary, you have to remember you bought a sports car, not a honda civic. If you are after amazing tire life, then you bought the wrong car (or aren't driving it the way it was designed to be driven).

aCab

And I have still yet to hear you ever post a good explanation/diagram of why too much toe will create the wear phenomonon you speak of where it wears in the center the most. All I hear is "this is what happened to me". Prove us all wrong and give us the facts, not just your results.