Modified by ht-si at 1:00 PM 3/1/2007

 

sounds to me like bad toe

 

How is the tire wearing across the face?
Evenly across the tread face? Inside edge primarily? (toe or camber) Outside edge primarily? (toe or camber) Consistent but angled wear primarily from the inside? (camber) Both edges but not the middle? (under inflation) Middle and not the edges? (over inflation), etc. Most of these that are not really even across the face are alignment or inflation wear.

My FWD cars always tend to pretty evenly wear slightly faster on the passenger front than the others and I generally equate it to a foot problem instead of toe- throttle foot. An FWD car with one person it it most of the time that is driven rather quickly (not even getting near street racing which I have never ever done nor will I), especially if it has no limited slip differential and sometimes even with LSD, is more likely to get a little more spin or slip and simply wear quicker. When you pull out from a stop sign or light, if you pull away with much throttle you are likely to get a bit of not very perceptible spin. Not talking real wheel rotation or lighting up but fractions of slip that just add up over thousands of miles.

One other possibility is where you drive if there is some specific repeating hard turn. To get into my garage, the end of my driveway has a 180 degree hook that requires full lock left turn. Even at near zero speed, on my Explorer this tends to smear the very outer edge of my right front tire and wear the outer edge.

Nothing much you can do about the last two without changing your driving style other than rotate your tires regulalry to share the wear evenly on all the tires. Back when I was a tire salesman in the '80s, we always suggested rotating every 3000 miles or at oil changes so all tires get worn evenly.

 

On most honda's and imports the drive wheel ( the tire that gets power when LSD isn't engaged ) is on the passenger side. This would explain why the tire wears down faster than all the others.

 

Can this thread be brought back from the dead? I noticed that my passenger side front tire wears out faster too. I thought it might have to do with corner weights. I assumed that it somehow was holding more weight than my front left, but my neighbor randomly walked by and suggested that it was actually ligher (due to no passenger) and therefore slips more easily.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by beanbag &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Can this thread be brought back from the dead? I noticed that my passenger side front tire wears out faster too. I thought it might have to do with corner weights. I assumed that it somehow was holding more weight than my front left, but my neighbor randomly walked by and suggested that it was actually ligher (due to no passenger) and therefore slips more easily.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I supppose it's possible that it's related to corner weight. My front tyres wear quite evenly. Perhaps if some toe is present, and one wheel has more camber than the other then the tyre with greater camber may tend to wear a bit faster?

Could it be related to the car often being turned more tightly in corners that are toward the passenger side side than the driver's side (i.e. at 'T' intersections the turn radius will be tighter when turning one way into the near lane and less tight when turning the other way, crossing the near lane into the far lane). So, when turning into 90° corners in town driving the arc in which the car is turned will more often be tighter when turning toward the passenger side than the driver side (with a LHD car this would be tighter turns to the right and with RHD cars would be tighter turns to the left).

This would be excacerbated with a heavy foot and some cornering speed, i.e. the inside front wheel will unload more in tighter turns taken at reasaonable speed and be more likely to spin a little with application of 'enthusiastic' power pulling through the turn.