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Hello Folks,
I have a tire wear issue that's been bugging me, and I'm looking for some advice.
At the end of the summer, I noticed the tires on the front wheels of my car where not wearing evenly. Specifically, they are wearing on the outside edges of the tire (both inside and outside edges equally) quite rapidly. The same wear was evident on both sides of the car.
I had the car lined up last spring at my usual indie because I replaced the outer tie rod ends and front wheel bearings. I don't believe I had any indication of uneven tire wear previous to this, nor for some time afterwards.
When I noticed the uneven tire wear near the end of the summer I first decided it looked a bit like 'low tire pressure' wear, and checked to make sure my pressure was okay. Pressure in both front tires was at 35psi, which is where I set it, and which is above the recommended tire pressure for the car which I believe is 32psi. I upped the pressure to 38psi anyway just to try to keep the center of the tread pushed out as much as possible.
I decided that since I would be putting my winter tires on in a few weeks it was in my best interest to get this problem resolved asap to avoid wearing those tires unevenly as well. Winter tires have soft rubber and bare roads will eat them up quickly.
So I had it aligned again at a different shop closer to where I now live (I moved since I started seeing indie #1). This new place (indie #2) has a brand new alignment machine and charged more money for their service, which I guess made me feel I was at least getting an adequate alignment job.
I've now gone about 2500 miles on my winter tires, on that fresh alignment (second of the year) and I can see the uneven wear pattern I noticed at the end of the summer recurring on these tires as well. Again, my tire pressure is well above the recommended level, and now I've had two alignments within the last 8 months/10000 miles.
On the summer tires I felt a bit of a pull to the right, which seems to be reduced on my winter tires. I guess I assumed this was due to wheel balance (or rather wheel out-of-balance), but now I'm feeling suspicious.
I'll try to take some pictures this evening to display the type of wear I'm talking about, but I would really appreciate any ideas on what might be the cause of this problem. I can see the car eating through tires quite quickly if it's left this way.
I will try to rotate the tires frequently to mitigate the effects of this wear pattern. In the meantime all advice is welcomed, as I'm feeling stumped.
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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 195k+
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