Ok, so I see a lot of threads asking about camber and lowering and do I need camber arms/bolts/alignments. Obviously it is really really hard to have an easy answer since there are so many variables. From the way you drive, to the roads, to the tires, to your maintenance schedule and tire pressures, there are a lot of factors in tire life and wear. These are just some pics I took of my tires after approx. 40k miles of driving on them. Hopefully this will give you guys an idea of what tire wear might be like with more or less camber than what I ran.
So my summer tires are currently dead. I drove them way past the safe limit, I think, since they became nearly unmanageable when it was raining out. I did drive them in some snow, not fun, and promptly put my snow tires on that day. So.....
Tires: Dunlop Direzza DZ101 in 225/45/17
(A decent tire, not great, that can be had on sale from Tirerack for less than $90/tire in this size)
They did last pretty long and I was not nice to them.
Setup: 08' LX. Yea, no power so the wear will probably be more pronounced in an Si since you actually have some zip.
Progress 22mm rear sway bar
Koni Yellow Struts
Neuspeed Sport Springs (1.6" drop, slightly more once settled)
Camber bolts and rear camber arms.
Settings: F -1.2 R -0.8 Toe: 0-ish, as close as they could get it. Technically it is slightly toed in all around.
Rotations were done almost perfectly every 5k miles and the tires were swapped off for snow tires for 6 months every year.
Tires:
Looking at the tires that finished out their lives on the rears the wear looks pretty even:
Still pretty worn out. This is the "inner" tread line. It definitely is more worn than the outside. Lincolns head should be covered. This is way past worn. (yes I know there is a hair)
Outer tread line: Lincolns head almost hidden. As you can see these tires wore pretty darn evenly.
The wear bars across the middle are almost even with the tread. When you are down to the wear bars it is definitely time for new tires.
More on the wear bars. Almost dead even with the treads. The penny was to help the camera focus.
Now all the tires wore pretty evenly. I did take this set of tires to the Dragon last September and they were getting pretty close to worn out then. I also drove quite a bit after that from NY to KY while I was moving. This next pic is of the tires that lived on the front for that entire time. The front tires on your car get punished heavily. The car is FWD and the engine puts all its weight on them as well. This is running -1.2 camber. You can see the inside tread line has dissapeared. The rest of the tire has worn as evenly as the other images. The outer tread line and the center wear bars are exactly the same across all 4 tires. The inner tread lines on the tires that were on the fronts both look exactly the same. Hope this helps a bit. Let me know if you want to see more pics or have more questions. These tires were pretty worn already when I killed them. However, this should show you that the tires can wear pretty close to even if you have around -1.5 camber or less and rotate them on schedule. I was trying to kill these tires at the Dragon. Im sure they could have lasted a bit longer but eh, time for something new anyway. More camber than what I have been running will result in more wear.
Boom... inner tread wear....
So my summer tires are currently dead. I drove them way past the safe limit, I think, since they became nearly unmanageable when it was raining out. I did drive them in some snow, not fun, and promptly put my snow tires on that day. So.....
Tires: Dunlop Direzza DZ101 in 225/45/17
(A decent tire, not great, that can be had on sale from Tirerack for less than $90/tire in this size)
They did last pretty long and I was not nice to them.
Setup: 08' LX. Yea, no power so the wear will probably be more pronounced in an Si since you actually have some zip.
Progress 22mm rear sway bar
Koni Yellow Struts
Neuspeed Sport Springs (1.6" drop, slightly more once settled)
Camber bolts and rear camber arms.
Settings: F -1.2 R -0.8 Toe: 0-ish, as close as they could get it. Technically it is slightly toed in all around.
Rotations were done almost perfectly every 5k miles and the tires were swapped off for snow tires for 6 months every year.
Tires:
Looking at the tires that finished out their lives on the rears the wear looks pretty even:
Still pretty worn out. This is the "inner" tread line. It definitely is more worn than the outside. Lincolns head should be covered. This is way past worn. (yes I know there is a hair)
Outer tread line: Lincolns head almost hidden. As you can see these tires wore pretty darn evenly.
The wear bars across the middle are almost even with the tread. When you are down to the wear bars it is definitely time for new tires.
More on the wear bars. Almost dead even with the treads. The penny was to help the camera focus.
Now all the tires wore pretty evenly. I did take this set of tires to the Dragon last September and they were getting pretty close to worn out then. I also drove quite a bit after that from NY to KY while I was moving. This next pic is of the tires that lived on the front for that entire time. The front tires on your car get punished heavily. The car is FWD and the engine puts all its weight on them as well. This is running -1.2 camber. You can see the inside tread line has dissapeared. The rest of the tire has worn as evenly as the other images. The outer tread line and the center wear bars are exactly the same across all 4 tires. The inner tread lines on the tires that were on the fronts both look exactly the same. Hope this helps a bit. Let me know if you want to see more pics or have more questions. These tires were pretty worn already when I killed them. However, this should show you that the tires can wear pretty close to even if you have around -1.5 camber or less and rotate them on schedule. I was trying to kill these tires at the Dragon. Im sure they could have lasted a bit longer but eh, time for something new anyway. More camber than what I have been running will result in more wear.
Boom... inner tread wear....
