Holy Inner tire wear!
 

Just changed out my "Summers" for "Winters" and found this issue.
Background: Tires came w/ car when bought at 38K, now have 58K.
It only happened on the front tires, the back were fine. The whole inner tire was worn down flat but not down to the belts, these were the worst spots.
No uneven tire wear last year when i changed the tires out last Fall.
Installed Eibach springs in late July this year and had an alignment on Sept.14th at the dealer. SEE PICS.
Have KUMHO ECSTA SPT stock.
Really surprised to see this kind of wear this fast, is this expected with the MS3 on Eibach springs? I had minimal wheel shake and no handling issues. Drive the car hard thru the curves and twisties as expected, could have frickin' died had these blown out.

Your RF and LR camber values are too negative. High negative camber will cause inner tire wear like that.

Get adjustable rear camber arms, and either shift the subframe, get camber kits, or hog out the strut tower mounting holes for the front.

This can be right, but typically it is the car's toe settings that will cause such drastic wear problems in a shorter amount of time.

I ran -2.5 camber on my last car and and never saw anything that bad.

On the pictures it looks like it was rubbing on something... did you check around the inner fender for plastic/metal wear?

I wore my V12's out with camber only. -3° in the rear did it. I'm at -1.5° all around now.

Are you saying I currently have too much neg. camber up front? Don't want to burn out my new steelies this winter. The dealer said they had a hell of a time trying to get the front w/I specs and couldn't adjust the front passenger anymore to even get it to specs. I had no issues until i had an alignment done and the Eibach 'drop" is pretty minimal.

Hey thanks thanox2, i'll check the fenders wells, never thought about rubbing, didn't hear or feel anything but i was driving her pretty hard just last weekend.

The car doesn't have any camber adjustments stock, aside from shifting the struts around in the strut tower holes. Based on your camber values, I hazard a guess that your subframe has been dropped before and isn't centered.

Lowering the car naturally increases negative camber all around. Your toe settings aren't drastic enough to cause that wear.

My car had this issue from factory. Its a common issue from what Ive read that happened with ms3/6. Mazda set the toe rediculously wrong on some vehicles. My stock tires looked like that at 20k. I took it to a buddys shop and had him adjust the alighnment. Now a new set and 33k later n my tires have 60-70% tread left evenly on all sides. :biggthumpup:

THIS

Ever since I installed my adjustable ball joints, I've cranked my camber to -2.5 degrees too, but I have ZERO toe. I also run the tire pressure a bit lower to help the tire wear evenly. So far so good. Something like having the tires overfilled can also add to the problem.

While I agree, his posted alignment specs clearly show his toe is fine.

Get the camber fixed or you will have tire wear.

Didnt find any rubbing issues in the wheel wells. I keep my tire pressure at 35F and 33R, a LB over stock. I'm gonna watch my winter tire wear , get new summers and have another alignment. The CARFAX was clean when a bought the car but the dealer said they couldnt get the right front camber w/i specs, seemed kinda weird to me. I guess the Eibach drop was enough to throw things off. Don't see any signs of an accident but you never know.

Yes and no. MS3 factory tolerances are far too wide. And the Toe is still too aggressive. Needs to be at .05* or less, IMO.

The sawtooth pattern indicates a pretty good drag from a toe misalignment. And the camber angle is accelerating that wear exponentially.

Reduce the camber and zero out the toe. Firestone will do it if you ask them. GL.

Hows the wear so far? I am getting some crazy inner wear on the front driver side. Thought it was rubbing on wheel well, but can't feel it anywhere or see. Going for alignment this week, hopefully that is the cause. Time to buy 2 new tires, a damn shame when still have 70% tread life.

I've recently discovered abnormal tire wear on the inside of the front tires only. I felt around and found now where it could have rubbed. The car drove and felt fine the whole time this was happening.

For my loss, i'm lowered and no alignment so thats obviously the problem. Whats not so obvious is how to fix it.

I've decided on rolling the rear fenders for more space and adding 10MM spacers with extended studs then running 235/40's. Also gonna probably add spc ball joints.

It could have been rubbing during cornering but i never felt anything unusual. Which why i think spacing them out will help with that and give me more room on the inside for the wider tire.

Any feedback on this scenario? If i'm only gonna run 1.5 degrees negative camber do i really need the adjustable ball joints?

So wait, you lowered the car and never had it re-aligned??

If that's the case, you're not likely rubbing anything but the road... You have way too much toe and therefore you're seeing highly accelerated inner tread wear.

Yuuup! pretty much. With the crap oem specs and the wide tolerance i didn't see a point with out adjustble BJ's and the specs to have it set to. I drove it that way for 25k before it really started killing my tires. Worn insides or not the tread is beat and they all need replaced anyways. I do however intend to do it right this time.

Either way, i was lazy and cheap about it, and here i am spending the money i would have spent in the first place. Would the tires have lasted longer with a proper setup? Probably. I could have made it to next winter then got new treads. And thats ideal if you run A/S's.

So don't be like me kids, Lowering it, align it, love it.

Yeah, a small change in ride height usually has a pretty big effect on your toe settings, at least in the front. You're lucky they lasted as long as they did, honestly.

Here is what happened to both of my fronts at the same time on the highway.

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/...7/IMAG0255.jpg
http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/...7/IMAG0257.jpg

Well damn! talk about scared straight. I need to quite fuckin around and fix this shit.

Inner tire wear is not something to fuck around with. I could have seriously hurt myself or others on the highway just because of my neglect to my tires. And the fucked up thing is that they looked just fine on the outside.

so about 4 -5 months ago i got rearended by a jeep with cattle gaurd bull shit in my 07 ms3 fucked up the glass the hatch bumper cover and mounts underneath and so on, anyway i had just rotated all four tired afew weeks earlier,the car goes to body shop and i demaned a four whell alignment to be done as it just felt wrong after crash, no lower no suspension other then factory so today i noticed excessive inside tire wear on both front tires... allignments not even 6 months old... i still have the print out but the car feels like its hopping or skid/skipping if i do a full steer lock u turn left or right. any body got advice that would possibly help please thank in advance

holy shit @tee.dog what the fuck are you trying to say?...separate your questions/concerns/ideas with punctuation.

Ya man, that was tough to read. So what happened when you went back? Or, did you go back to the alignment shop? or, did you.... wait, i'm not sure i understand.

How old were the tires when the alignment was done? Because they can say that its your tires just being old. Still odd that with no suspension other than stock, that your having issues like this.

Agreed. maybe he was lowered and went back to stock after the accident? Eh, who knows.

I'm running into the same problem on my car. In have an 08 with ~114k and am on stock suspension and am on my sixth set of tires. The stock set of tires lasted about 20k and wore just fine. No problems at all. Then I put a set of rt615's and after about 8 months the Rf tire had to be replaced because of tread separation. So I got two new rt615's put on. Well again about 6-8 months later I blew a tire on the RF. Looked at the tire and the tread had separated. So since this happened twice I figured it was just a shitty batchnof tires so I bought a whole new set of sunlike for the car. Well fate about 9 months same shit happened again so I got two more tires. Then later it happened again about six months later. I had multiple alignments done and was always told it was in spec. Well shitnhappened again a few days ago but caught it really early before the tire could be destroyed. I was pissed when this happened the third time now I'm just beyond pissed because this is costing me so damn much in tires. So in a few days I'm gonna get the car on a lift and inspect all the suspension and see if anything in just completely fucked. Though I don't think it is because the car drives perfect. Hopefully I can figure this shit out.

Damn man! I would have thought something was wrong after the first disaster. Like you said though, the car drove fine. Same here, and now my tires are fucked.

And you got alot of miles for an 08 you must drive the shit outta that thing which leads me to two questions.

Why buy expensive soft tires if your commute is so far, and why use such sticky tires on the stock suspension every day?

I also have inner excessive tire wear here's my thread/info

http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/foru...ellows-114332/

Bringing this thread up again.

I have a Gen1 and at the beginning of the summer installed Gen2 wheels with OEM tires. By the end of the summer, the inside edges of the fronts are basically done. That's in around 6k miles of spirited driving. I haven't had issues like this with my other tires on the car so I suspected alignment which was off so I got it realigned with very little toe in the front and rear.

COBB springs and Koni FSD shocks are installed. I have attached the alignment specs which are fine AFAIK.

However the wear continues.

For all you Gen2 owners, did this wear happen once you switched tires as well? I am thinking the Dunlop design with a very stiff sidewall is putting a lot of wear on the inside edge even with mild camber. Basically I want to narrow this down between either still looking at alignment or if it's a tire issue.

http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/foru...1&d=1348783334

Lex: Did you go see Jason at Dale's?

He and I have had discussions about how the "Mazda Spec" for the rear camber is way too wide.

That aside, I thought you weren't supposed to put any lowering springs with Koni FSD's?
Also do you have rear camber arms installed?

This tire wear is happening to my car as well. Gen1. Started with the stockers. Car has stock suspension and wore the very inside edge of my stock front tires only, back tires were fine. For my car the passenger side front is worse but the driver’s side front still wears almost as bad. I rotated as much as I could but soon it meant both tires would suffer anyways.

I changed out my stockers and the replacements were mounted on RX8's (235/40/18 Nitto NT-05's) with an alignment (don't have the spec sheet or remember what they the tech set them at or were set at previously from the factory but wasn't told or remember about anything being abnormal) same wear right now in the front inside edges again. (Again back is fine) Fak. Still had a little more life left in em but oh well. I'll replace them and make sure the allignment is zero toe and I guess that's all I can do....

I did not see Jason and the front is actually killing the tires more than the rear but unless I get camber plates can't really do much. Toe is essentially zero. I do not have camber arms either since the COBB springs don't really lower the rear at all. The FSDs are valved just fine for the COBB springs, no issue there and the drop is very mild.

Check all of your bushings over and inspect them for play.

The dynamic nature of the rear toe (the way it changes more significantly through the suspension's range of motion than it does with many multi-link setups, providing a passive rear steer effect) on this car can definitely exaggerate tire wear abnormalities due to bushing wear.

The bushings in the "toe links" and the forward trailing arm/"control blade" bushings, as well as the camber arm bushings are all essential to that geometry functioning properly.

We all need to remember that static alignment numbers only tell us part of the story, and that there is a lot going on when the car is moving about which those numbers can't tell us much.

Thanks for the tip. Most of the wear I am seeing is in the front however and there is nothing loose about the front suspension (or the rear for that matter). Any tips there? Is the camber really enough to cause severe wear in the front?

Toe not set at 0 will help wear out the inside of the tires, negative camber to an extent will not wear out tires much at all if toe is 0, Toe not set at 0 plus to much negative camber will eat away at your tires :sorry:

A friend of mine that has had a Mazda 3 hatchback and now has a Speed3 over the last 4 years and has replaced tires yearly. He does rotate his tires every time he does a oil change as well so about every 3-4k miles. He drives about 15-17k per year on the car and still the tires wear out fast. Mazda's factory specs are in my opinion a little on the aggressive as far as toe and camber could be a bit less for most people that just DD there cars. They handle pretty well out of the box for a reason and that is the alignment is a tad on that aggressive side.

If you want better tire life and wear I would run 0 toe all around and no more than -1.5* of camber for a DD.

I have learned this the hard way with doing an aggressive autocross alignment on one of my car having some toe in and out in the front and rear and never changing it back because I loved how the car felt and handled. About 4-5k miles later I was in need of new tires :ugh: I had the car re-aligned and kept a little negative camber in there I believe -1.5 front and -1.0 rear, but removed all toe front and rear and tires still looked new after 7k miles when I sold the car :)

Hope this will help you with some. I would just ignore the factory specs as far as toe goes and just 0 it out front and rear and then maybe run a little less camber. Also Have your cars alignment checked at least once a year if not twice a year to make sure everything is staying at the correct settings.

Thanks,
Dallin

Run less air pressure and attack more corners...

The moment I notice inner tire wear is the moment I realize I need to do more aggressive driving.

@Lex

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...67C7EDF5D9.jpg

I honestly don't see anything alarming on your alignment sheet, to tell you the truth. :hmmmm2:

I run similar numbers (about -1.4° camber, ~4° caster, and 1/16" TOTAL toe OUT - in the front) and with regular (perhaps more frequent than most, at ~3K miles or so) rotation I don't have any issues with irregular wear...

:dunno:

Neither do I so this is why I am suspecting the tires are prone to it. I run 32/32 pressures daily.

@theurgy thanks for posting - your front alignment looks very similar and it looks like you have camber arms in the rear. Any strange tire wear and what tires do you have?

I can only think of three reasons for excessive inner tire wear: too much negative camber, too much toe out, or too high tire pressure. Looks like you have all those covered Lex. Must be the tires.


Tapadatass

No strange wear and I'm running Hankook Ventus V12 EVO's.

This is where the plot thickens. I found a local set of OEM Dunlops that are literally new that I am tempted to pick up to replace the current ones. I got one summer out of these tires (albeit I did need an alignment for a few k miles there) - but in any case I'd like 2 summers out of the tires.

Funny thing is that a lot of Gen2 people are having this tire wear issue along with regular Mazda5 and Mazda3 people overseas where the cars came with the same Dunlop 2050s. Something's fishy here.

Very interesting and yes I know that deal for those tires.
Thought about getting them myself.

Tire pressure might be the issue. Here's how the premature inner wear went on my 2050's. For the first 10k miles I was really religious keeping the pressures at 35/34 and saw no uneven wear at rotations. At 10k was when I got lax and checked pressures less frequently and let them run down to 33/32 before I added air. At 15k I first noticed the excessive inner wear. At 18k they looked unsafe and that's when I replaced them. I'm on BFG comp-2's now and keeping the tires at 35/34. So far at 5k tire wear is even. Tread depth is down to 8/32 from 10/32 so I know they aren't the longest wearing tires but hopefully they wear even this time. I'm thinking that letting the pressure get low on the 2050's contributes to their demise. The 2050's inner sidewall isn't that stiff so you wind up riding the inner edge of the tread and kill it prematurely with low pressure.

I am religious about keeping my tire pressure above 34lbs. Generally 35-37lbs. I check them often since the TPMS won't let me know they need more air since limit is below 30 (I think 28 or so). I like the stiffer sidewall I get from the higher pressure. Same front very inside edge wear issues since I bought my car new off the lot.

If anything, too high a pressure would lead to abnormal quick wear in the center of the tread patch which would lead me to believe there should be less load on the outside edges so I'm not sure how this could be anything else besides toe issues. Even excess neg camber in the front would wear the inside tread patch more but I am getting wear only about a half inch wide and farther to where sidewall stops and the tread begins. Pics earlier in this thread are just like mine.

what I don't get.. is that you don't check your tire wear & pressure on the regular??!!?. at least once every month or so...

that's what I do.. I know my car is lowered.. I know my camber is off... not checking is just dumb.

Sh*t happens.. stuff breaks.. things don't line up... the more aware you are of the shoes on your car, the safer you will be.

----------
my last set of tires Yokohama Avid Envigor's
supposed to last 60k - only made it for about 23k.. camber wear killed them.
if I just assumed they would make it to 60k.. I'd be dead in a ditch.. from a blow out while speeding.

always check.

Factory suspension and stock dunlops on a 2012 speed3 wear excessively for about a 1'' band around the inner treads on the front, passenger side is the worst. I was worried I was the only one... I have 16k on mine and been challenging the 2/3 to retard service department at my local dealer since the first rotation at 5k, that the camber or toe settings are just not right regardless of the "spec" provided by the MFG. Finally had them agree to "zero out" the settings as best as possible and luckily I too keep a check on tire pressure and wear 1-2 times per month so I have another rotation round before I need new tires. Dependent upon the outcome with zeroed settings over the next 5k, I might ask them to adjust to front camber the positive side slightly on my new set since this turned from a fun ride into my primary ride unexpectedly. Question though, I thought only the rear had no factory camber adjustment?

Still bugs me that obviously it is set too aggressive from the factory for a DD and instead of fixing the problem they just say "well this is an enthusiast car and the summer tires just tend to wear a little quicker, we see this a lot".

Neither front or rear camber is technically adjustable on the MS3.

A little bit of "wiggle room" is available in the front upper strut mount bolt hole slop though...

I had this issue with my dunflops as well. Got an alignment before i ran my summer wheels and still have this band of wear.

Im running 1.5 degrees of camber which shouldn't be a problem.

I wonder if there is dynamic camber and castor issues, that would cause wear as bad as that.

I have this same issue with my car, it tore up my stock tires, I lowered the car, bought new tires and took it in for 4 wheel alignment(the tech told me it "wasn't to bad" and a year later same issue, tires are shot by 20K miles and it's the front that is wearing about a 1/2 inch to maybe an inch wide on the inner side of the tire.

Although alignment print outs seem wonderful it is not hard to tap a tire to get it to read correct while its on the rack. I don't know if it's possible on all machines but I suspect it is. Alignment could be off tap the tire a hair and boom it's within spec. This will only work for toe obviously.

Good Afternoon,

I bought my speed3 in June of last year. I currently have 15,000 miles on the car and my inner tire wear is massive. I took it to a local place to get it realigned, with the specs of 0 toe front and 1/16 inner toe rear. I took it home yesterday and my stearing wheel is off by about an inch or inch and a half. I called them today and asked about this and they said to bring it back in. They called and said with this current setup there is not much they can do with this. Has any one else ran into this? My specs are from the last alignment.

Left Front
Camber -0.7
Caster .....
Toe -0.01

Right Front
Camber -1.1
Caster ....
Toe 0.00

Left Rear
Camber -1.8
Toe 0.09

Right Rear
Camber -1.8
Toe 0.08

Do these numbers look ok? Or should I take it some place else?
(edit)
And Im sorry I should have said its a 2012. I didn't want to make another thread over this issue.

If they can't figure out how to center the steering wheel, you need to find a better alignment shop, IMO. :rolleyes:

Your Right rear toe adjustment is out of spec which in turn means your cross toe is out of spec which can cause increased wear. Without the front camber it indicates that they didn't properly align the alignment heads. While this can give you toe and camber its not as accurate as taking the extra 2 minutes to set up the heads correctly.

I would request my money back and find a better shop.

Thanks guys for the replies. I got the car back a few minutes ago. It seems that they fixed the stearing wheel issue.

When I get back from Pensacola I'll be putting new tires on this and might just go back to the default setup.

Let me know the printout and we can see if they did it properly.

Crap! I didn't ask for a print out this last time. I'm not sure they adjusted any thing except the stearing wheel.

ALWAYS ask for the print out.

I went to a shop one time that said their printer was broke when I asked for the printout. So I asked if they could at least write what they got on a piece of paper. Gave me the run around for that to and said to late the screen was already closed. I was pissed.

I wouldn't have paid.
To me, the printout is like the receipt.

I am going to have a shop do an alignment on my car tomorrow. I am on my 6th set of tires in 100k on my ms6.:hitwithrock:

What do i ask for? Get my toe as close to 0 as possible and my Camber as close as possible to -1.5?:34:

As long as it is within the set parameters you will be fine. As little camber as possible will help with more even tire wear.

Whaaaat????
 

Just got back from Discount Tire to do a tire rotation/balance and they told me they would not be able to do it because my front tires have inner tire wear. According to the rep, he has seen this numerous times w/the MS3 and after about 20k miles I have to replace the tires or risk a blow out. What!?!?! Mind you I bought my 2011 MS3 brand new and it currently has 26k miles. This sounds like a manufacturer defect to me. I am filing a complaint against Mazda with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and suggest everyone that is experiencing this problem do the same. According to the website:
Motor Vehicle Defects and Safety Recalls: What Every Vehicle Owner Should Know | Safercar.gov | NHTSA , if the agency receives similar reports from a number of people about the same product, a safety-related defect may exist and would warrant the opening of an investigation for recall. I'm not paying $600 every 20k miles because of an obvious safety issue that should be handled by the manufacturer. What do you guys think???

Welcome to the club. Mine lasted 12k miles.

I think your a tard..... performance oriented cars on summer tires typically only go 20-25k miles between tires. Get a good alignment and you MIGHT see 30k depending on the tires. Its not a safety related defect, its just an aggressive alignment.

:dance: :dance: :dance:

I was tempted to "thank" you and "groan" you simultaneously, so I'm writing instead.

Performance-oriented cars on summer tires are going to eat through the tires fairly quickly due to more performance-oriented alignment specs. That having been said, with a good alignment, aimed more with an eye to tire-longevity, it's possible to get well into the 40k mile range before having to swap tires out due to wear. This, of course, assumes relatively sedate driving (mostly highway cruising, etc.), and not a whole lot of hard cornering or wheel-spinning shenanigans.

I've got an MS6, so I have different alignment issues to watch out for, but I saw 42k miles on my first set of tires (RE960AS - 225/40/18), and have seen an additional 20k on my current all-season tires (Conti DWS - 225/45/18) with minimal noticeable wear.

On my summer tires though...(RE040 - 225/45/18), I'll be lucky to see 15k, since I drive them harder.

Basically, it's all about 1. how your car is aligned, and 2. how you drive. If you're planning on filing a claim with the NHTSA, then you should learn how to drive first @Samguzma;.

You guys can eat a d...!

:261:

I personally think that you have no clue about the car you've got or cars in general. If I were you I'd file a complaint with the NHTSA about some products in a grocery store as well and whine about some cheese going bad in the trunk in a 100F day. It happened in the car, so it must be the car's fault.
Good luck with your complaint.

P.S.: these cars have an aggressive alignment to give them both traction and cornering stability. If you drive them slowly/normally it's perfectly normal, read PERFECTLY NORMAL, to see inner tire wear. And as a daily driven car it's expected to drive them normally and see a bit more inner wear. If you push your car hard in tight corners or even high speed bends you will see outer shoulder wear as well, and in this case the wear will be more even. I'm not saying you should drive the car hard every day or for no reason and endanger yourself and others in traffic, I'm just explaining to you how things work in a sports car with McPherson/single arm suspension (things are a bit different with cars having double wishbone suspension such as the MS6 by example).

The tires you note that are getting 40k+ are both all seasons. On a summer tire, as you noticed, you wont be able to go as far. On the ms3 a lot of it is due to toe settings along with the aggressive camber of up to -2.9 degress. If you go towards the more conservative end of the factory alignment specs you *might* see 30k on a summer tire. If you go with a summer that has a higher treadwear rating you will give up some traction but it may then be possible to make it to the 30-35k range.

True summer tires dont last. Look at one of the leading summer tires, the NT-05. Your lucky if you can get them to 15-20k miles.

I guess you're right I dont know a whole lot about my car... I have better things to do with my time then to jerk off to postings by El Diablo, Vanquish, and you other nerds.

^ :hitwithrock:

premature inner tire wear checking in.

pass front is down to the cords, glad I was poking around and saw it, otherwise i would've thought "i've got another 5-6k before I need a new set."

the irony is, i'm going through the car so i can get ready to sell it, and now i've got to dump money into it for new tires. FML.

Ok, so as a conclusion, especially if the car is lowered and/or is running wider tires than stock we should adjust the camber a bit to widen the contact patch. This should improve both handling and traction, and make the tire wear happen more evenly across the entire surface of the tire.

As far as I know too camber can't be adjusted, so we need camber arms (Eibach/SPC/JBR/Whatever).

I've said it before, but I'll say it again:

I have absolutely no weird wear issues with a proper alignment, and mine's even a bit on the "aggressive" side of the spectrum (for not using camber plates, that is)...

:dunno:

That said, I don't get a lot of mileage out of my tires. I'm also not using tires with a lot of treadlife to begin with, but I'd be happy to get ~15K and a few trackdays/autocrosses out of a set. Lol.

Go fuck yourself you dumb brownie faggot!


Sent from my iBro 5 using tapatalk, Bro!

Just did...

Brownie faggot, oooo cant wait till I grow up to be a VIP Member.
Why don't you check the inner wear on your ass cheeks?

Just forget about logging on to this site or stop the bullshit before things get bad for you.

You won't make it that long to even donate before we send your stupid ass out of here crying like a little bitch.


Sent from my iBro 5 using tapatalk, Bro!

Listen, as dumb as my original post may have sounded to you clowns, you fags are the ones that started this shit. I joined the forum to gain some insight, but if you jack mfs want to talk shit, I'm not going to just sit back and take it. And if you're threatening me El Diablo, anytime you want to wear out your tires some more come to San Antonio. I would be happy to meet you.

As for you Godspeed, I have gained nothing from this forum. Kick me off, I really don't give a fluck! Oh, you can eat a d.... too.

I'm done wasting my time here.

Lol dis faggot mad

A little tapa tapa taparoo...

@CWP_MS3; @Raider;

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instanc...x/28979774.jpg

You get what you put in you dumb fuck. If you gain nothing from this forum, shit your hood, sell your car, and cancel your Internet connection because I can promise you, there is nothing you will learn about this car from another site that we don't already have here. This is THE mazdaspeed site.
What YOU fail to realize is your post was very "matter of fact" and your issues and suggestions have already been addressed by many other members. Stop being butthurt, take your newbie ball busting like a man, shut your mouth, and read. By not doing so, you are missing out on a vast network of knowledge and connections. You think you are the only one who has been hazed? Fuck, my first week here not only did I get warned and busted on, so did my wife. You aren't special and we haven't treated you any differently than anyone else. The difference is, you obviously can't take it.

EDIT* going back and re-reading the posts, you absolutely over reacted and in fact you were given some incredible information about how to get 40k miles out of tires. Also we're told that it is normal problem for the shitty stock tires we have. All because someone called you a tard you tell us to eat a dick?!?! Grow up man and get off your high horse. Normally I would eat you for breakfast for making your smart ass comments but I am trying to show you that you made a mistake and you might be able to save yourself. The choice is yours...


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Stop feeding the trolls.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Blow me!


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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Well, to try and get this thread back on topic:

2008 MS3 w/ 61k miles, stock suspension. Owned since March '13.

I just noticed yesterday that my inner front tires are wearing down significantly more than the outsides. Rear tires are fine. All 4 tires only have a little less than 5k on them, and the front insides are approaching bald, while the outsides have plenty of tread on them. Just doesn't seem right. They are Cooper Zenon ZPT's (which don't have the best reviews, but it's what the dealership put on the car)

Now, I haven't gotten an alignment done, yet. But, from reading through this thread, I had some questions. One suggestion was to have the shop set the toe to 0. But another post suggested that the alignment was set aggressively stock to handle better. So, if i have an alignment shop align the car for better tire wear, am i sacrificing performance/handling? And, is this tire wear problem a little worse because of the tires i'm running? Would a better tire wear more even?

First of all, you should have your current alignment read first if possible to find out where it currently sits. That will give you a good baseline and perhaps alert you to issues that may exist with your hardware (your car is old enough for worn bushings/balljoints to be a real possibility) that will make any alignment performed rather useless before addressing.

To answer your question:

The "factory alignment" is widely varied and has an abhorrently large tolerance range, IMO. When referring to the "factory camber settings" they are NOT necessarily set "to make the car handle optimally" - they are set to make the car understeer at the limit for safety's sake.

I run zero rear toe and 1/16" total toe out on the front of my car and I have no issues with tire wear. I currently have -1.4° camber in the front and -1.1° camber in the rear, and my front caster is (if I recall correctly,) +4.5° on both sides.

i know this has been an ongoing thread with many people asking questions, but what would cause the inner part of my tire to rub on the strut? im running stock suspension, stock rims and 215/45 hankook v12's. is that a severely worn bushing? ball joint? or can it be as easy as a totally jacked up alignment? car drives straight without any noticeable issues related to poor alignment. but then again, i am a relative newb. i am looking at running some 225/45's next and dont want to ruin a set of brand new tires. especially since the larger size will be that much closer to the strut

I'd start by checking the alignment. If that's ok, then start looking at other possibilities

A simple search may help too, learn to do search
https://www.google.com/search?q=site...ient=firefox-a

Yep, severely worn bushing/ball joint (they would clunk though) or bent control arm or something. You seem to have a lot of negative camber which should not be possible on stock suspension setup. Go get an alignment and see what the guys from the alignment shop have to say.

Ok thanks guys. I'll have an alignment shop take a look. Here what the issue has caused:

You can see where it has rubbed on the strut where to end of the coil is
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...psf8e284ae.jpg

And the tire
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5d092847.jpg

Glad I caught it now. That's for sure.

That's not from rubbing on your strut.

The position of your tire/and wheel relative to the strut and spring perch does not change (outside of a *very slight* amount due to "wheel flex").

I am going to agree here considering this is exactly what my stock tires looked like when I pulled them off. Found out from some very smart people (you and dan) this is a toe issue.

I have nothing to say but thanks guys, there's a lot of great info here.

I noticed some insane front inner wear on my summer tires when I swapped to winters on Sunday. I've put the car away for the week and booked in to get an alignment done on Saturday.

The weird thing is, it seems like inner tire wear wasn't a problem until this summer. I bought the car with 40,000km(32000miles?) last July on OE bridgestones (the last owner had winters as well). The tires wore even last year until I put winters on in Nov.

March this year, I took my winters off and put the OE summers on and drove on. Ran into a couple issues with the rear sway bar but nothing wrong with the front. Nothing told me why it decided to wear down the insides in around 10,000 km. Granted the tires were on its last legs, but still.

Alignment specs change over time with bumps and potholes ect. This is why you must re-align the car every so often. IMO the minimum should be atleast once a year.

If your car is properly aligned "adjustment hardware-wise" then the only thing that alters your alignment over time (aside from impacts that bend metal) is bushing wear. The adjustment hardware itself should stay put.

I just wanted to make that distinction. ;)

I haven't done an alignment yet...20k miles stock DUNFLOPS
Yes, I'm slacking :smashfreakB:

Hey, let me start with sorry im a noob to forums and ms3's. Anyways, just bought a 2007 ms3 and it came lowered. I haven't taken in for an alignment yet, but looking at it by eye it seems like shes got a bit much negative camber. Since its dropped pretty low, ive been trying to find a front end camber kit to install, but I can only find kits for the rear end. I know I can slot the strut mounts for a little extra adjustment, but that seems like a haggard ass way of going about it.
Anybody have any suggestions? I just don't want to be putting a new set of low pros on every year