The Tire Wear Problem Thread

I just get my tires rotated when I have my oil change done. The time intervals are about the same anyway. 8k is the distance between oil changes and it's usually 10k between recommended rotations. I'm not going to get into a schedule of coming back just to rotate my tires. I'll get it all done at the same time. As a result I'm at 32k on my OEM tires and I figure I'll make it to at least 50k before I need to replace them!!
 
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The advice to buy an air compressor is the best! I have a large one with permanent air hoses in the garage, but that is overkill. I see small tank compressors at Harbor Freight and Pep Boys for under $50. Far cheaper than wearing out your tires early.

I agree with the tire gauge also.
 
Everyone needs a little negative camber. (dunno)

I have the means to do all this in my garage. Saab owners do.

Rocket said:
The advice to buy an air compressor is the best! I have a large one with permanent air hoses in the garage, but that is overkill. I see small tank compressors at Harbor Freight and Pep Boys for under $50. Far cheaper than wearing out your tires early.

I agree with the tire gauge also.
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I went and paid for an alignment and they told me it was minor adjustments that they had to make. I think I will take some of the advice from 7red7 and see how it goes.
 
airman_slacker said:
I went and paid for an alignment and they told me it was minor adjustments that they had to make. I think I will take some of the advice from 7red7 and see how it goes.
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I hope it will work out for you :)

Hopefully your 5 doesn't have all of these troublesome problems mine has... I know they can be a pain to deal with especially when you consider you just got locked into a few more years of car payments...

Best of luck!!!
 
FWIW, negative camber is NOT the problem here. Toe is. The combination of extra negative camber and toe in is probably the issue for those with troubles. We don't have tire-wear troubles with ours except for having mild signs of too-high pressure (I keep them at ~38 psi).

I run negative camber on my cars up front on purpose, and have run up to 2 degrees of negative camber. The camber itself does NOT cause wear issues unless it's combined with toe.

Personally, I like to run the rears of my cars as close to zero camber and zero toe as I can get the shop to get them. HOWEVER, changing from these factory specs to a double-zero alignment may alter the response to turn-in and will almost certainly reduce grip in corners and emergency avoidance maneuvers, so that may not be a brilliant plan in this case. Personally, when we replace our tires or think we need an alignment, I'll probably have them zero the toe and leave the camber at or close to factory spec.
 
I've passed on my OEM Toyo tires first 25K km (with regular 8K km rotations) and have no remarkable problems. It looks like they will work fine on next 25 40 K km
(canada)
 
airman_slacker said:
Well the place I took it to to get the alignment did not have a way to adjust the camber the way it needed to be adjusted. I need to go to Mazda and find out what exactly they find.

I will double check the tire pressures and try increasing it, but while it may alleviate some of the wear, it is still not going to fix the problem that my rear right wheel is leaning massively.
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well I was under my car tonight removing the bike rack (I removed the rack with the bikes still attached) and I noticed something. The pivot bolts for the lower control arm have off-center washers with degree markings. So from what I can see, camber adjustment is acheived by adjusting these. Not on the upper control arm as per usual. On mine, the indicator is just a hair outboard of what looks like 0 degrees. I can take a pic if it helps
 
Yes, they're eccentrics. What I haven't looked at (perhaps you have?) is whether that will adjust the camber or only the toe. Is that lower link the only piece for the rear suspension, or is that the rear portion of an A-arm and there's a front arm as well? If it's the former, it should adjust camber. If it's the latter it'll only adjust toe. If there is a front arm as well and it also has eccentrics in it, then you can adjust both simultaneously and get a camber adjustment.
 
There is no camber adjustment on the 5.
Those excentric bolts only adjust the toe-in.
A very poor design
 
Excessive tire wear is usually a result of too much toe-in or toe-out. Anyone experiencing poor tire-wear, especially if one side of the tire is wearing faster than the other side, should have a GOOD alignment shop check their alignment. Negative camber, in small doses, should not have a drastic effect on tire wear. I would suggest shooting for an alignment of something like -1 degree camber front, -.5 degrees in the back, and 0 toe all around. It also helps to up the tire pressures by a bit. For street use a good starting point is usually somewhere around 8-10 psi below the tire's maximum pressure rating.

l8r)
 
My mom and I both have 06 mazda5s. I was getting the rotational noise associated with uneven wear at around 20,000 miles. I had just moved and was going to a new Mazda dealership for my scheduled service and the guy said it looked as though the tires had never been rotated. He rotated them for me, fronts to rears, and said that if the noise came back or got worse, he could sell me new tires, but he couldn't do it in good conscience, then, because the amount of tread left (on the good sides) was decent. two oil changes later, the noise was getting worse, and he sold me a whole new set of tires. They're much less noisy, and I haven't had uneven wear troubles yet (been on about 6k miles).

My mom's 5 is up to about 28k miles and she is now getting the rotational noise... she's dealing with the same dealership I was, before I moved.


If you go for regular service at a mazda dealership, how often should they be rotated? Is it in the schedule of regular maintenance?

Has anyone gotten uneven wear on tires besides the stock Toyos?
 
EFDisaster said:
My mom and I both have 06 mazda5s. I was getting the rotational noise associated with uneven wear at around 20,000 miles. I had just moved and was going to a new Mazda dealership for my scheduled service and the guy said it looked as though the tires had never been rotated. He rotated them for me, fronts to rears, and said that if the noise came back or got worse, he could sell me new tires, but he couldn't do it in good conscience, then, because the amount of tread left (on the good sides) was decent. two oil changes later, the noise was getting worse, and he sold me a whole new set of tires. They're much less noisy, and I haven't had uneven wear troubles yet (been on about 6k miles).

My mom's 5 is up to about 28k miles and she is now getting the rotational noise... she's dealing with the same dealership I was, before I moved.


If you go for regular service at a mazda dealership, how often should they be rotated? Is it in the schedule of regular maintenance?

Has anyone gotten uneven wear on tires besides the stock Toyos?
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Because oil changes are at 8000km's and Good Tire maintenance should be 10k , I get my tires rotated with each oil change. The Toyo's wear fast, but you should be able to get to 50k with them, I think I will.
 
jackd said:
There is no camber adjustment on the 5.
Those excentric bolts only adjust the toe-in.
A very poor design
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Well I can add to this forum. I did change mine over the winter and spring ( Toyos to snows etc) and thought that should be good.. well it wasnt. The Mazda dealer today gave me a fix and this will allow a little adjustment to the camber.It will allow a little more positive camber, by replacing the camber adj bolt with the bolt pictured.. I took the car to an alignment shop and they adjusted the camber AND toe..
Meanwhile I bought a decent used set of Yokohama Avid TRZ's.
 

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When I go to the dealership to get anything done, the first thing I tell the service adviser is to not touch my tire pressure settings under any circumstances...Don't check them, don't adjust anything, don't even take off the valve stem caps!!! I just had my 5 in today for it's regular oil change and it's first tire rotation...Everything is on the up and up, and my tires (all four of them) are wearing perfectly even and have more than 90% of their tread left...The still look brand new...My 5 had 12,311 miles at the time of the service today, and I've owned it for a year and a half...

I honestly think it's still a PSI setting issue with the stock Toyos because I have the negative rear camber too, yet my tires are fine...I've ran my stock Toyos at 36psi (set and checked when cold) from the start...

The dealership I go to has all of their new 3's & 5's in stock running on Potenzas...They look so much sexier than the Toyos...I know what I'm getting for my 5 when I need new tires :D
 
How many miles between rotations?

Medicman said:
Well I can add to this forum. I did change mine over the winter and spring ( Toyos to snows etc) and thought that should be good.. well it wasnt. The Mazda dealer today gave me a fix and this will allow a little adjustment to the camber.It will allow a little more positive camber, by replacing the camber adj bolt with the bolt pictured.. I took the car to an alignment shop and they adjusted the camber AND toe..
Meanwhile I bought a decent used set of Yokohama Avid TRZ's.
Click to expand...
 
I changed them spring and fall, between the Toyos and the winter tires.
That was at 16,000 km , and the time in between they were checked at the service interval. I had previous cars where I did the seasonal change and there were no wear issues. I did speak to Mazda Canada and they will be looking at it ( good luck). This spring when they were changed back , the garage I was at said the tires were bad , and that actually means the tires had 16,000 km.
on them
 
I always rotated the tires on my Saabs (neg camber) every ~3,000 miles and increased my tire PSI any time I had more than 2 people on a long trip. I will do the same with my Mazda5.
 
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