Less than 5000 miles on my rear tires and they are done. Alignment time

I got less than 5000 miles out of a pair of hankook ventus v12 evo tires. I had replaced cv boots on both axles and did not get an alignment done. I've got new tires now and a 4 wheel alignment done. I asked for an alignment for the least amount of tire wear. Rear toe was way off which was what was making me eat tires. Now it's set for almost no toes and minimal camber . Hoping to get close to 20,000 miles out of this set of tires.

Car definitely feels different now. A bit floaty or twitchy at highway speeds but getting used to it.

I was impressed w the tech. He seemed to ask good questions about how I drive I never considered crown in the road to be a factor but set the car up for a left lane driver and minimal crown in the road.

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Petee_C
I got less than 5000 miles out of a pair of hankook ventus v12 evo tires. I had replaced cv boots on both axles and did not get an alignment done. I've got new tires now and a 4 wheel alignment done. I asked for an alignment for the least amount of tire wear. Rear toe was way off which was what was making me eat tires. Now it's set for almost no toes and minimal camber . Hoping to get close to 20,000 miles out of this set of tires.

Car definitely feels different now. A bit floaty or twitchy at highway speeds but getting used to it.

I was impressed w the tech. He seemed to ask good questions about how I drive I never considered crown in the road to be a factor but set the car up for a left lane driver and minimal crown in the road.

Interesting. I've never felt the Boxster to be floaty at any speed. On a straight, level road, I can take my hands off the wheel and it just tracks straight.

If you set it up for left lane driving, I guess that means you drive mostly on the Expressway and 401. I would have thought that you'd do more of your driving on 2 lane roads, considering where you live.

Guenther,

You're right.... The tech asked if I drive mostly city, I told him my new commute takes me to Listowel and Wingham, and 2 lane roads.

I would guess my driving is

20% city
5% KW expressway
1% 400 series
74% 2 lane roads.

The car definitely felt floaty a bit on my Wingham commute, but if I let go of the steering, it still tracks straight. It might follow tar snakes a little more.

We'll see how the tires hold up.

my fronts have 30,000km on them and are fine.

My rears are brand new.

Here are my alignment readouts after:
LF / RF
Camber 0.1deg -0.2deg
Toe 0.05deg 0.05deg
Caster 7.4 7.3 (ie. not within spec)
Total Toe 0.1


LR / RR
Camber -1.1 -1.7
Toe 0.02 0.02
Total Toe 0.04

My "before" readings in the back were horrible

LR / RR
Camber -1.0 -1.5
Toe 0.35 0.85
Total Toe 1.2 degrees

Likely due to me doing the CV boots on both sides in the past 18 months, removing the adjusters to get the axle out.

P

I guess I'm just confused about why you'd have the car setup for left lane driving if roughly 75% of your driving is on two lane roads. Even the roughly 25% you're on 4 lane roads (assuming most of the city roads you drive are major 4 lane roads), you likely wouldn't spend all that time in the left lane.

I wonder if the car feeling twitchy might be caused by ruts in the roads caused by heavy trucks. In that case, the tires try to follow the "valleys". Just a thought.

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Guenter in Ontario

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Petee_C
I got less than 5000 miles out of a pair of hankook ventus v12 evo tires. I had replaced cv boots on both axles and did not get an alignment done. I've got new tires now and a 4 wheel alignment done. I asked for an alignment for the least amount of tire wear. Rear toe was way off which was what was making me eat tires. Now it's set for almost no toes and minimal camber . Hoping to get close to 20,000 miles out of this set of tires.

Car definitely feels different now. A bit floaty or twitchy at highway speeds but getting used to it.

I was impressed w the tech. He seemed to ask good questions about how I drive I never considered crown in the road to be a factor but set the car up for a left lane driver and minimal crown in the road.

Interesting. I've never felt the Boxster to be floaty at any speed. On a straight, level road, I can take my hands off the wheel and it just tracks straight.

If you set it up for left lane driving, I guess that means you drive mostly on the Expressway and 401. I would have thought that you'd do more of your driving on 2 lane roads, considering where you live.

Are your tire pressures set to stock? Also, keep in mind new tires will feel a bit less connected for the first 200-300 miles until the mold release wears off the tread.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2012 09:12PM by MikenOH. (view changes)

Due to the way it is set up, you trade off toe for negative camber. In general, optimal toe, which is close to zero, but not zero, comes at somewhere around -1.5 deg camber (in the rear). In the front you can't really adjust camber, except by playing with tolerances - maybe you can get -0.5 to -0.9 deg but that's it (until you lower the car).

If you set it up to factory spec, tires should last ~ 15k+ in the rear and 25k in the front. Unless you track them. Mine do, even with hard use.

Track is a different animal. I chewed up the outer from edge in 1 day on the track. So to me, lots of - camber in the front INCREASES tire life. Like from one day to 4 :-) Kidding. Sorta.

OTOH - camber really does improve handling as you approach the limit. I just dialed -1.7 deg all around into my station wagon. Hang on groceries!

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

Sounds like alignment time. Original NSXs had 1 degree of + toe in the rear wheels to give it a 1 G lateral acceleration number. As a result the cars wore out sticky tires in the rear at 4K miles. Few people know that Lotus Europa's had a 1G plus rating for latral acceleration back in the 70's. 1500 lbs. 185 tires. I had one. It was like skiing. Fantastic.

Yesterday, I hit over 1G several times on a trip through the mountains. Didn't feel like that much - but I have never actually had a G meter before.

Lawdevil
2013 Boxster S - Agate Grey,
2016 Macan Turbo - jet black
Cashiers, NC & Atlanta

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Petee_C
I got less than 5000 miles out of a pair of hankook ventus v12 evo tires. I had replaced cv boots on both axles and did not get an alignment done. I've got new tires now and a 4 wheel alignment done. I asked for an alignment for the least amount of tire wear. Rear toe was way off which was what was making me eat tires. Now it's set for almost no toes and minimal camber . Hoping to get close to 20,000 miles out of this set of tires.

Car definitely feels different now. A bit floaty or twitchy at highway speeds but getting used to it.

I was impressed w the tech. He seemed to ask good questions about how I drive I never considered crown in the road to be a factor but set the car up for a left lane driver and minimal crown in the road.

standard settings. A bit of toe and a bit of camber,whatever the amounts are. (I have plenty of alignment sheet printouts to refer too just none handy.)

The car feels stable with no twitchiness on all roads and at all speeds (up to 168mph in my Turbo, and around 140mph in the Boxster.) Tire life is even with the Turbo good. The last set of rears were still good at 23K miles when one picked up a screw and I had to replace both tires.

I do not have the alignment set for road crown. I drive on too many roads that do not have the standard crown. I like the car set up neutral in this regard so if the road is crowned down to the right I have to steer slightly towards the left to keep the car going straight and with the crown to the left I have to steer slightly to the right to keep the car straight. With no crown the car's going straight down the road and the wheel is dead level.

One can't do much about some roads that have grooves worn from the passing of heavy vehicles or bad road surface grinding or other surface imperfections that can when one or more tires encounter these imperfections cause the to want to pull or even mildy veer a bit one way or the other.

My experience is the particularly bad imperfections (to put it mildly) are where lane marking stripes have been ground away leaving a nearly foot wide fraction of an inch deep groove where the lane stripe was. When one of the cars' tires (the Turbo with its 11" wide rear tires is especiallly senstive to this) encounter this it is like the car is suddenly on rails and the rails go where the groove in the pavement points.

On other roads the tires have put grooves into the lanes that on more than one occasion I've pulled off the freeway to a side road to check for a low or flat tire. Even though I cover these roads almost every day. Some lanes along some sections are just horrible.

Sincerely,

MarcW.