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Long story short, RE71R's are shot over a weekend trip, rears only, while the fronts sits good as new.
To elaborate, I have a fairly aggressive setup for the street, sitting at -2.5 camber all around and 1/8 of toe on the rear, zero on the fronts. I think these are popular alignment settings for autocross that a friend recommended me to run. I've had the tires on the car since April for about 3.5k miles of street driving, no track or autocross yet.
A week and a half ago made a trip to NYC, about 1200 miles total, and this past weekend I made a trip to the Indy 500, another 800 miles total and today I've noticed that the rear tires are gone. I didn't let anyone drive my car without me being in it so I doubt any burnouts were done.
Couple of theories I have...
1. At the beginning of May I made a spring preload adjustment on the rear, which dropped the car about 1/8th of an inc. The only thing with this is that last week I check the tires and I had plenty of thread on all corners, and the wheel is still straight.
2. Driving to Indiana I noticed a vibration around 70MPH on accel and decel. It was also hard to pinpoint because the amplitude of it constantly changed even leaving the car on cruise control.
3. I drove around for two days in the Bronx and you wouldn't believe how bad the roads are there. I'm thinking maybe hitting a pothole, something in the suspension loosened up.
Replacement tires are on the way and will have someone from the local SCCA club that does alignment check it out. The wear mirrors on both sides.
Last edited by freddydela; 05-27-2019 at 12:55 PM.
Probably going to find out that you have a bunch of rear toe in or out, or that you have a very worn rear bushing that is allowing the car to dynamically toe out.
Either way, the RE71R does not last in general. Is your total mileage on those tires 5500mi or 3500mi? Post is a bit confusing in that respect.
If I was just going by pictures alone I'd say the tires were over-inflated, but you confirmed they were only at 32 psi. That wear is crazy for such low miles, I'd suspect a suspension setting being off that mimics the same wear pattern as over-inflated tires, i.e. the centre rib is worn more than the outer edges.
Probably going to find out that you have a bunch of rear toe in or out, or that you have a very worn rear bushing that is allowing the car to dynamically toe out.
Either way, the RE71R does not last in general. Is your total mileage on those tires 5500mi or 3500mi? Post is a bit confusing in that respect.
Total miles on these tires are 3,200 miles. I’m aware that their grip comes at the price of life. I were hoping to get 10k maybe stretch it to 12k being that I’m only planning to attend about 2 track and 4 Autocross events this summer. I couldn’t make it to the first event!
Last edited by freddydela; 05-27-2019 at 05:50 PM.
Almost certainly an alignment issue. Same thing happened to me, rear toe went way out of adjustment and the rears wore down evenly over 3000ish miles. 1/8" toe wouldn't do that, but still I'd recommend less toe than that for better handling and for tire life. I ran .15 to .2 degrees total rear toe-in on my AP1. Also you should get it aligned after changing ride height anyway. But still I think something slipped way out of adjustment.
Almost certainly an alignment issue. Same thing happened to me, rear toe went way out of adjustment and the rears wore down evenly over 3000ish miles. 1/8" toe wouldn't do that, but still I'd recommend less toe than that for better handling and for tire life. I ran .15 to .2 degrees total rear toe-in on my AP1. Also you should get it aligned after changing ride height anyway. But still I think something slipped way out of adjustment.
You might be correct on this as dumb as it makes me feel. I remember making that adjustment and being caught in the rain on my from work, the car felt like it had a lose wheel immediately.
I seem to get about 10K miles on rears no matter what. I have rear toe set at minimum OEM number. Car handles well on street. The car never sees track or autocross.
05-27-2019, 12:51 PM
Tires Are Gone Over a Weekend Trip.
