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[EP11]

Hey everyone,
I own a 2007 335xi running KW V1, JB4, VRSF downpipes, and staggered VMR V710 (19x8.5 & 19x9.5) I had bad front inside tire wear and had to replace my front tires, when I replaced the tires I also had my car aligned at BMW. About a month later when I installed the KW V1 I saw that my tires were still wearing a little on the inside so I also had my car realigned after installing the coilovers. However after 3 months of driving my car (About 3K miles) after the last alignment my brand new front tires are now showing wires. My rear tires are wearing fine. I have done research on the forums and most of the tire wear problems that I see are of tires wearing badly on the outside. Therefore this leads to my question, how can I solve this??? I'm about to purchase Michelin PSS and I don't want to ruin $500 dollars worth of tires in 3 months. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Elvis

[Cloud9blue]

post your alignment print out which your dealer should have given to you after each alignment.

[EP11]

I will once I get home

[cmg5461]

Low tire pressure with any negative camber can do this

[kfriceman]

You have aftermarket suspension & wheel package that alone can cause you all kinds of alignment woes if you do not understand how to two work together. Just something to consider, BMW spent millions in R&D to get their components to work in harmony.

Good luck, I hope it is something simple to resolve,

-Kevin

[EP11]

Originally Posted by kfriceman

You have aftermarket suspension & wheel package that alone can cause you all kinds of alignment woes if you do not understand how to two work together. Just something to consider, BMW spent millions in R&D to get their components to work in harmony.

Good luck, I hope it is something simple to resolve,

-Kevin

I compltetely agree, BMW definitely knows what they're doing. I'm by no means an expert when it comes to suspension set ups, but I only lowered the car as much as the "sport package" from the factory would have. And in regards to the wheels sizes the car was aligned to the specs of an e90 with this wheel setup at BMW. Yes I know the wheels are bigger, but the overall rolling diameter was only changed by .01% from the stock wheels.

[turo]

Agreed on the negative camber and low tire pressure. You need to get us your alignment specs to be of any help.

[shadow191]

Aftermarket wheels have nothing to do with tire wear. Tire wear issues are alignment related. I had an issue last year w/ really bad inner tire wear on front passenger. It went from fine to worn in maybe 1500 miles. Didn't even realize it until I was working on something else and I saw it. Took it to shop and that side was way out of spec on toe - suspicion is that I hit something hard. That summer there was a lot of construction so that's likely it. Shop did the alignment and no more excessive wear.

I'm running KW V3's and 20" wheels. I forget my toe specs, but front camber is -1 and rear is -1.8 both of which are within range. There is no exact factory spec, there is a range that is allowable. For tire wear, toe has a much bigger impact than camber. Unless you're a stance guy running -6 degrees, no one here runs enough camber to cause excessive tire wear in a couple of months. I'm at -3 on my other car and I get 20K mi. before I see inner tire wear.

[SM335i]

Your toe is off

[kfriceman]

Originally Posted by shadow191

Aftermarket wheels have nothing to do with tire wear.

You are so wrong and I can't even being to start to explain. This is certainly not a catastrophic event putting on aftermarket wheels but if you are having tire wear issues that are hard to diagnose this is a variable to consider. Just because a wheel fits does not mean it is in concert with the vehicle suspension geometry, not a common problem but one that can exist unknowingly.

-Kevin

[shadow191]

Enlighten us please. With aftermarket wheels rotating weight changes, width may or may not, and rolling diameter will hopefully be kept close to OE specs. Those things will impact your ride, braking, and handling. But I fail to see how they would impact tire wear. BMW even offers different sized wheels as factory option.

If your alignment is within spec, how would changing to an aftermarket wheel cause excessive tire wear? Over the years, I've driven on aftermarket wheels/tires for north of 200K mi. I've never had an issue w/ excessive tire wear that could not directly be traced to an alignment issue - usually toe is out.

OP is on aftermarket suspension; and he doesn't know his alignment numbers yet. I'd point to suspension first.

[kfriceman]

As I stated earlier the aftermarket wheels are not likely an issue but should be considered if all other fixes are coming up short of a solution. “BMW even offers different sized wheels as factory option”, yes they do and these options are engineered to work as OEM equipment.

Some light reading:

“What many understand about wheel alignment is only a part of the story. The alignment-angles they check and adjust, and the specifications they use, are for static alignment. That is, the way the wheels are set with the vehicle setting still. Dynamic-alignment is the angle the wheels are at when the vehicle is in motion. They engineer this into the chassis and suspension and if static-alignment is okay; dynamic should be as well.

Problems begin when anything alters the original design. Many things can change dynamic-alignment and go undetected in a static check. Typical examples include, a change in vehicle height, worn or bent components and any modification to the wheels or suspension. To find these type problems, technicians need a thorough knowledge and some simple diagnostic measures.

The effect of ride height on tire wear

All wheel alignments depend on a level vehicle, sitting at the proper height. If the vehicle leans to either side, it drastically affects wheel alignment. The same is true with ride-height. Static alignment-specifications are for a vehicle at stock height. When the position of the vehicle changes up or down, the specifications also change, to an unknown. Calculating the dynamic requirements without extensive tests is impossible. Because dynamic-alignment has changed, setting the alignment on a raised or lowered vehicle to perfect static specifications results in worn tires.”

“To illustrate, consider a typical vehicle setting at stock height. Lower control-arms angle downward at the wheel end. The arm pivots at the attachment to the crossmember and travels in an arc. As speed increases, air flow pushes the vehicle down, reducing the ride height. The distance between this pivot and the lower ball joint gets longer as the angle decreases. This pushes the bottom of the tire out and produces negative camber. Camber changes, because steering axis inclination or the angle of the pivot points change."

“Static alignment allows for the normal change in rolling camber, by presetting the wheel more positive. This works well if the arc of the lower control arm remains as designed. Artificially raising or lowering a vehicle changes the angle. The lower pivot no longer travels through the same range. Static alignment that is set perfectly will not produce the desired dynamic-alignment, on a vehicle with altered height.

Attempting to correct for camber

Modifications in the vehicle stance also change static camber. When a vehicle is lowered, camber moves toward negative. Steering axis inclination is not adjustable on many vehicles. Some aftermarket kits that attempt to correct camber, changes the included angle. The included-angle and wheel-offset control the scrub-radius.”

“The term scrub-radius, refers to the distance between the pivot point of the suspension and the actual center of the wheel. This distance is critical. It controls whether the wheel will dynamically toe in or out. Scrub-radius will also determine how much toe will occur. Toe in and out are extreme tire wear angles. Setting the static toe perfectly, will not provide the proper dynamic toe, if the scrub radius is wrong.”

Wheel offset and its effect

“Wheels with a different offset will change the scrub radius. Offset is the difference between the center of the tire and the mounting face of the wheel. Manufacturers carefully engineer this into the original wheel and it must remain. Replacing wheels with an improper set can create a tire wear problem, and suspension abnormalities.”

-Kevin

[shadow191]

All of that I understand and it primarily addresses the suspension. I get that the same static camber setting on a lowered car is different than on a stock car since on the lowered car you're already a good ways into the suspension travel just sitting there.

But the only thing that would impact tire wear at all is scrub radius. You're absolutely correct that lower offset wheels that protrude further impact scrub radius and potentially tire wear. I'd just argue that it would take some pretty extreme situations for lower offset wheels to change things enough that excessive tire wear is happening. And the same would be true for someone who put spacers on OEM wheels.

So everything you posted is correct and I agree with all of it. Changing the suspension can impact tire wear. I'll just modify my statement to say that aftermarket wheels and tires have virtually nothing to do with tire wear. OP is running a very common setup that lots and lots of other people run. If a big part of his problem were the wheels, I'd think that we'd see dozens if not hundreds of post about the same thing.

[bmw325i]

Originally Posted by shadow191

Aftermarket wheels have nothing to do with tire wear. Tire wear issues are alignment related. I had an issue last year w/ really bad inner tire wear on front passenger. It went from fine to worn in maybe 1500 miles. Didn't even realize it until I was working on something else and I saw it. Took it to shop and that side was way out of spec on toe - suspicion is that I hit something hard. That summer there was a lot of construction so that's likely it. Shop did the alignment and no more excessive wear.

I'm running KW V3's and 20" wheels. I forget my toe specs, but front camber is -1 and rear is -1.8 both of which are within range. There is no exact factory spec, there is a range that is allowable. For tire wear, toe has a much bigger impact than camber. Unless you're a stance guy running -6 degrees, no one here runs enough camber to cause excessive tire wear in a couple of months. I'm at -3 on my other car and I get 20K mi. before I see inner tire wear.

This guy is right toe is off. 0 toe is best for tire wear and also fuel economy. If your tires are not parallel to each other they will try to move closer or further away from each other but obviously they can't. Changing the wheels doesn't really affect anything.

[kfriceman]

Originally Posted by shadow191

All of that I understand and it primarily addresses the suspension. I get that the same static camber setting on a lowered car is different than on a stock car since on the lowered car you're already a good ways into the suspension travel just sitting there.

But the only thing that would impact tire wear at all is scrub radius. You're absolutely correct that lower offset wheels that protrude further impact scrub radius and potentially tire wear. I'd just argue that it would take some pretty extreme situations for lower offset wheels to change things enough that excessive tire wear is happening. And the same would be true for someone who put spacers on OEM wheels.

So everything you posted is correct and I agree with all of it. Changing the suspension can impact tire wear. I'll just modify my statement to say that aftermarket wheels and tires have virtually nothing to do with tire wear. OP is running a very common setup that lots and lots of other people run. If a big part of his problem were the wheels, I'd think that we'd see dozens if not hundreds of post about the same thing.

I agree as well and that is why I stated if all is equal and there still is a problem you might consider looking closely at the suspension upgrade in conjunction with the wheel package, not likely, but there could be an issue there......basically take a look and check it off the list as a potential variable.

-Kevin

[EP11]

Well I seem to have lost the alignment sheet, I found the one for when the car was aligned with the stock 17" wheels but not the one for the 19" wheels. I am installing my camber plates when they come in this week, and I also am ordering my PSS. Does anyone have the spec sheet for a 335xi with 19" wheels?

[EP11]

Well just an update on the situation...I am getting new tires on Friday (PSS) and an alignment, I'm going to get them to get the least amount of toe as possible and the camber up front to -1 and the rear to -1.8. I ordered camber plates but I am now beginning to realize that it's really not necessary with what I'm using my car for (highway, daily driving, and occasional mountain runs) I am just going to replace my upper strut mounts with OEM replacement because one of them is damaged. I think this will hopefully fix my problems, let me know if you guys agree? I will also put up my alignment specs after I get it done.

-Elvis