When the inside of my rear tires start to wear...

I don't keep accurate records of the boxster's expenses... mainly cause I don't want to know. My best guess is that the tires were put on at around 69,000km. Currently the odometer is just above 90,000km. The rear passenger tire is pretty much done... Typical (I suppose for Boxster) wear - more wear on the inside than out. Soon, the cords will be showing.

I keep a pretty close eye on the car, wash it with ONR about 1/week. Still surprised. I did notice that the passenger rear seemed to have more tread wear than the driver rear a few weeks ago.

Reading on the different forums indicates it's due to alignment settings, and the lack of LSD?

Got a quote from local (Canadian) tire dealer.... $738 (including 13% sales tax) for 2 hankook v12 - 265/35r18's -tires mounted, balanced installed.....

$738 expected from crappy tire. I don't know were you live but did you try Tire rack? Plenty of choice.

Hi Carlos,

I'm in Canada, but the tire shop quoted was not Cdn Tire. Sorry for the misunderstanding. no Tirerack installers within 60miles of my Postal Code.

I found a decent price in Toronto.... driving 220km round trip on Saturday morning to save $140. www dot simplytire dot com

Peter

Quote
Petee_C
no Tirerack installers within 60miles of my Postal Code.

Just so you know, there's no requirement that Tire Rack tires have to be shipped to one of their own installers. In the past, I've had them shipped to my local mechanic. Even my Subaru dealer said he would accept delivery and install them for about the same price as most Tire Rack-approved shops.

right hand drive country/region the passenger side rear tire can wear faster than the driver side rear tire. This uneven wear arises from during cornering the inside tire can slip/spin since it becomes less loaded and the outside tire more loaded. The outside tire/wheel transfers torque to the inside wheel/tire and that contributes to the propensity for the inside tire to spin.

Even though we of course make left hand turns right hand turns are sharper and this and the above work to make the passenger rear tire wear faster.

You can cut down on this wear by easing up on the throttle a bit when rounding a right hand turn.

And get the alignment done.

Sincerely,

MarcW.

That's why on normal cars, you rotate all the tires, which you can't do on these directional tires Porsche uses. It woudl help wring out several more thousand miles if we could rotate left for right sides.

one can switch the left/right tires with the wheels, keeping the same direction. The downside is the additional time(s) the tire beads are stressed when dismounting. I had this done once, and a subsequent sidewall bubble on one front tire might be attributable to this.

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

2 rear Evo's installed, etc. cost me $342 back in March at Discount Tire. They don't stock them here but were happy to order them. I guess you pay a premium for being in a remote location. I had an alignment done by Porsche the same week. I have driven a bit but also done 2 full track weekends since then. The tires are still fine but I can already notice the inside wearing a bit more. I have found this to be normal for the rears on this car. The fronts wear much more evenly.

I am contemplating switching the tires from side to side for the last 2 DE's this year to even out the wear going forward. I plan to buy a set of track wheels and tires over the winter so these will be street only from now on. The insides will wear out first but as street tires they will last long enough that I won't worry about it.

I am bringing my wheels in to a shop in Toronto. $265 each including installation, etc. (plus 13% HST) I thought this was pretty good considering Tirerack advertises them for $180 for the 18's plus about $15 each for shipping plus $30-40 for a shop near Buffalo to install them.

In a couple years, I'll need rubber on all 4 corners. May consider a trip down to Buffalo and order thru Tirerack. Today's prices, all 4 corners should be about $800 including shipping, installation etc.

... more than the outside, I take it to the AX to even them out
Happy Boxstering,
Pedro

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles: [www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)

---

Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar

"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"

"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti

"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna

fast but even wear when you're in a drift!

Guenther, what brand tires are u using that you are getting 26.5K miles out of them? - that's 42K km!

I have the ContiSportContact 3s and you're right, it's just a little over 42K km on them. There's mostly highway driving on those including a trip to California and 3 trips to BRBS. Although, unlike Pedro, I don't AutoX, maybe I just even them out in the NC mountains. I knew there was a reason they built 226A . I probably have another 5K km or so left on them before I get to the wear bars. It'll be new rear shoes for the CURVEN8R next spring.

Most of my driving is 'hiway' miles too.... I've done 300km of track driving on these tires......

I hit 6500 rpm in 1st and 2nd at least twice a day, but am pretty civil other than that.

Mine were perfectly evenly worn after 16k miles when I took them off for age reasons. Probably had another 5K on the rears while still legal and maybe 20k on the fronts. Mixed driving. And no I didn't baby it around turns.

It is all in the alignment.

will alignment shops have a book on what the alignment should be set to?

The wear on the driver side rear looks decent. A smidgeon more wear on the inside shoulder vs the outside shoulder. ie to the wear bars on the inside shoulder (don't know if it's past the wear bars) and maybe 1/16" above the wearbars on the outside groove.

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

done by someone who only understands that he has to get the numbers in spec and someone who understands what settings at one end of the spec do versus settings at the other end...both approved by Porsche specs.

To see how the specs provide a range of settings, a sample table is at [sites.google.com] taken from an owner's manual. My setup was done by someone who set op Porsches for racing and who had many many much higher performance P-cars than mine in the shop. I told him/discussed with him what I wanted from the car partially based on the tires that were on it when I bought it. The car's alignment was never touched after that in 5 years. Tires wearing evenly and traction fine said to me why fool with success.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2011 04:55PM by Pedro (Weston, FL). (view changes)

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles: [www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)

---

Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar

"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"

"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti

"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna

...Custom Alignment in Mountain View, CA.

One of my cars, the Turbo, received a crappy alignment from one dealer, which I no longer use for anything.

Far and away though the best alignment my cars have received have been from Porsche dealers. The machines are (save one which was at the dealer that did the crappy alignment) are modern, well-maintained and regularly and properly calibrated.

The aligment rack feeds digital data into a computer system and this is used to give the tech a graphical real time display of the alignment settings.

Here's a pic I took of the alignment rack's computer screen and you can see the detailed display of the alignment values.



As the tech was adjusting the alignment some of the settings would go out as the red shows. The proper alignment requires dynamic adjusting of not just one setting but 2 (at least) because as one setting is changed to bring it in to spec this can cause another setting to go out of spec.

As I think I mentioned before, while I watched the tech alignment my Turbo (but the Boxster is very similar) it was like a ballet as the tech used one hand to adjust one setting with a wrench and as he was looking at the reading making another adjustment with his other hand.

There are exceptions but I doubt many indy shops go to this trouble. And I've even gotten crummy alignments from indy shops when having much easier cars (my 06 GTO for instance) aligned.

Sincerey,

MarcW.

... there are good and bad techs at independent shops and at the dealerships.
And I'll go out on a limb and guarantee that the BEST alignments on a Porsche are NOT performed at the dealer.
The dealers will do a fine job of aligning your car to the factory specs which have a bunch of UNDERSTEER factored in.
I don't know about you, but most of us purchased our Porsche to explore its handling limits.
Those limits can only be reached with a performance alignment which you will generally not get at a dealer.
In fact, most of the techs at the dealerships have never driven a Porsche on the track.
You'll find that most of the independents are older techs very involved in Club racing and other high-speed events.
They not only have been trained to use the alignment equipment but they also understand and have felt first hand what each alignment adjustment can do for your car's handling.
They also understand the nuances that can't be taught, only learned with experience and feedback.
Alignment is more of an art than a science, and there aren't that many artists at the dealerships.

Take a look at an independent shop in my area, where I take my car to be aligned:

[www.tunersmall.com]

[www.tunersmall.com]

[www.tunersmall.com]

And this is their tire mounting and balancing equipment:

[i83.photobucket.com]

[i83.photobucket.com]

This is a shop I trust my life to, when I'm on the track.
I wouldn't do that with ANY of the dealers in my area.

Happy Porsche-ing,
Pedro

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles: [www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)

---

Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar

"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"

"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti

"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna

The Porsche dealer service department was closed but I stopped at the Audi dealer service department -- not about the tire but to speak with the main service manager about another subject -- and happened to think about the Boxster tire and asked the service rep at the Audi place for a tire shop recommendation. He told me Ken tire store behind a grill on Vasco Road. Oh, I was using the spare car, the Turbo to get around in. I hadn't even bothered removing the Boxster's rear wheel yet.

I went to Ken's tire store and asked if the shop would fix the tire. I was asked where the hole was and I told the person (Ken I think) I wasn't sure. He said to bring the tire in and he'd look at it. Dashed home -- the store only a few blocks from where I live -- and removed the wheel/tire and wrapped it in the large plastic bad and carried it to the tire store in the passenger seat of the Turbo. Left the Boxster up on its scissors jack.

Ken looked the tire over and spotted the nail in the tread. He said the tire looked worn out. I pointed out the tread was not yet down to the wear bars. He said to leave it and come back in a hour.

Back at the shop in a hour and some change and the tire was fixed and the charge $15.

So I may have found an indy tire store.

If I wanted a custom aligment I am sure where I have my Porsches aligned the techs would be more than happy to accomodate me. They do more than the factory alignment. I see cars in there that I know are tracked and the owner/driver asks for special alignments and gets them. The techs like nothing more to talk this over with the various owners and drivers and help them arrive at a best setup.

For me, so far the factory alignment when done right (and save for my one bad experience at another dealer they have all been done right) is good enough for me and my cars.

Sincerely,

MarcW.

Based on the "worn tire" sales line done without measurement?

Based on the $15 patch?

That isn't the charge for a quality inside and out patch where I go. Did they rebalance the tire? Bet they didn't for that price.

So why the confidence in this shop?

gets quite a bit of business from the Audi dealership that referred me along with other dealerships owned by the same corporation in that general area -- there's the Porsche, Honda, Audi, Jaguar, Range Rover, and Subaru all in that auto row -- I'm pretty sure I got a special price. The tire/wheel was already off the car so all the labor involved was removing enough of the tire to fix it. No rebalance done but none was needed. Since the tire didn't come off the wheel and the patch doesn't add that much weight the tire/wheel balance remained unchanged as near as I can tell. The tire was marked to the wheel and the tire/wheel relationship didn't change.

The tire appears to be holding air just fine and a test drive didn't found any imbalance. I'm happy.

Sincerely,

MarcW.

if the tire didn't come off the wheel it was plugged not patched

Got new tires today. Just under $600 for 2 rears (Hankook V12) which is good by Cdn standards...

Here are the old tire wears for you experts


^^Driver Rear



^^ Passenger Rear...

Comments welcome