Odd Tire Wear

Ok so the previous owner of my M3 had Acclera PHI2 tires installed.....yea I know why put budget tires on a car like an M3:slap:???? Well they need replacing and honestly I am not complaining cause I want some decent tread for my car. When I checked the tread wear I saw something quite odd though. It seems as though the OUTER portion of the tire has more wear than the inside and the wear difference is quite drastic IMO. I can only imagine that the previous owner had the tires switched in the opposite direction so the inner tread was now on the outside. I hope this is the case because I would imagine my alignment/camber setup is off.

INNER Side of tire




OUTER Side of Tire





To clarify the INNER side of the tire is right above the wear bars( right around the top of lincolns head). The OUTER side tread comes up to the lettering in the penny.... Thoughts guys?

I would fit the new tyres and go for a full alignment regardless of the cause.

its normal premature camber-wear. i think how it works is that the camber on the weighted corner (which is already -1.0 stock) becomes positive under compression (ie turning), so unless you have enough negative camber it will always wear like that.

I pulled my alignment pins on the front suspension and the outside front tires still suffered from about 0.5/32 of uneven wear. You could mitigate this by dialing in higher camber via camber caster plates, which would give you an extra few thousand miles maybe?

diy on alignment pin here: http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=521177

If you run too much toe in you will wear the outside of the tyres, similar if you run too much toe out you will wear the insides. Post the print out of your alignment check/adjust and it will give everyone something to work with.

Get an alignment and I would so zero toe. Also very important tire psi stay on top of it

edwinm3 wrote

Get an alignment and I would so zero toe.

Certainly the low end of the toe in range will make the front feel more responsive...as the front wheels tend to toe out on acceleration (the amount depending on wear and compliance) a little bit of toe in will stop the front end from tending to dart about on uneven road surfaces.