Ok... have had 17's on my car for a couple of months now and just blew one of the tyres the other night, basically the tyre looked fine from the outside but the inside was being ground away, just like really bad camber as shown in this pic...

After seeing this we checked the other front tyre and saw it too was the same (note the tyre did have very good tread before it blew but i had to get off the motorway)
The problem seems to be the inside of the tyre has been grinding on the inside of the guard when turrned as seen in this pic



Now you can't really feel the tyre grinding on the guard when turning which seemed strange but i have only had the 17's for a couple of months.
The car is lowered 35mm so whats the problem here?
There seems to be plenty of other civics lowered on 17's and they used to be on Mr Skys civic lowered without problems before this as well.

Any ideas what's wrong or how to fix it?

 

There might be plenty of other civics running around on 17's but probably not with the offset you're running. If you're running 17's you should be on 40 series rubber and have about a 42mm offset. My guess you don't have one of those otherwise you wouldn't be having this problem.

 

cheers, yeah that's what i figure that the offset is no good but the guy i bought the wheels off had them on his eg civic as well but with a 50mm drop.
I can only assume maybe he didn't have them on with the drop long enough to notice the damage?

 

Its spelt T I R E S and yes its most likely your offset that causing it.

 

You should also adjust your camber and toe to get the wheels as flat on the ground as possiblel. Some of the wear could be from the camber tilt too.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by turbocivic96 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Its spelt T I R E S </TD></TR></TABLE>
Not outside of North America.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GTCNDY &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Now you can't really feel the tyre grinding on the guard when turning which seemed strange but i have only had the 17's for a couple of months.
The car is lowered 35mm so whats the problem here?</TD></TR></TABLE>
Where is your toe set? The pictures aren't working for me, but extreme wear on the inner shoulders is usually caused by major toe out. Just forget the negative camber.

 

I'm not american dude
cheers for the answers i've got to take the car off the road in about a week for some major work so probably will try attack this problem once the cars rolling again

 

seriously, 17s are pretty big for a civic. For it to be the same overall diameter, your gonna need a REAL small profile, like a 35, maybe 30 to keep it ok.
3.5cm of a drop aint much, with the right profile tire, you ought to be ok on stock shocks. how wide are those tires? and yea, your camber is causing uneven wear, check into a camber kit, which is basically an adjustable upper A arm, easy to install. Look into harder shock/springs, cause 17s with big tires on a lowered civic is not what the car was built for, so we have to accomidate for this.

 

Ive never seen a 35 or 30 series tire for a 17" rim, smallest is a 40. But it sounds like the problem lies with the allignment. A little negative camber is not a bad thing, and usually doesnt cause severe wear, the toe being out will cause more wear onyour tires. Get it alligned and you shouldnt have that problem anymore.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Redline96LX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">and yea, your camber is causing uneven wear, check into a camber kit, which is basically an adjustable upper A arm, easy to install.</TD></TR></TABLE>
No no no!!!

I already said it. TOE OUT.

 

if you are riding on 17s your rubber should be 205/40/17 and if you dropped your car, you will probably need a camber kit unless it was a SMALL drop as that will cause uneven wear on the inside of the tire......Also if you put on new wheels I hope you got your car aligned right after, otherwise that is another problem......How did you lower your car? and don't say you cut your stock springs *eeeeeeeeek*

 

toes kills tires, not camber.

BUt excessive camber along with excessively out of spec toe will eat them up

 

my car had a camber problem, just slightly, didn't really ware the tires out fast, but once i put the skunk2 camber kit on the tires just got eaten up within a week- the car felt like it was pulling against itself all the time, it was definately the toe out of spec, once i got it aligned and new tires i haven't had a problem since.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by turbocivic96 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Its spelt T I R E S and yes its most likely your offset that causing it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

lol....I guess someone has not completed their ESL classes yet .

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Targa250R &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Not outside of North America.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

thanks heaps for all the replies!
Car is lowered properly for the record and it's going in tomorrow for a wheel alignment to see what is going on with it.
I'm hoping that it's just a bad allignment causing the rubbing because i really don't want to be getting new wheels

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Evs-One &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">toes kills tires, not camber.

BUt excessive camber along with excessively out of spec toe will eat them up</TD></TR></TABLE>

Um NO. Yes toe does wear tires but camber does also. For 2 years I had my 17's with 205/40/zr17 tires. And I lowered it to the point that there was no wheel gap left. OK, So every year (6 months, summertime only) I had to buy 2 front tires. OK. So I figured I can't keep buying new tires every year. OK SIR, and In those 2 years I've had good toe, I didn't need them adjusted. But I had a severe negative chamber problem. WHICH was wearing my inner tire out. So Like I said chamber DOES wear tires out unevenly. How could you say it doesn't??? But anyway so i bought a camber kit and I adjusted it myself with a construction level. Now after I did the adjustment I had horrible toe, it was really bad you could see the tires pointing out when the steering wheel was straight. So if you lower your car you will get bad camber which = inner tire wear. You don't mess up your toes by just lowering. I did all my friends suspensions, and non of the them did camber kits YET, but they all have good toe still. And what was cool was when i went to goodyear, I told them I need and alignment done asap. They were like "well we'lll look at it and let you know if you need one or not". So then he was like man "THAT IS BAD" "WHAT DID YOU DO?" And I told him I put a camber kit on. So first they were like your car is to low to pull into our machine and that my bumber will need to be removed, which would be an extra labor charge. I said well I can take it off in 2 mins, I have a scew driver! Then he came back out to me and said your car fits fine. So an hour later, he comes out and says "did you adjust the camber yourself and I said yeah, and he said you did a great job" And he showed me the print out of the camber degrees and the +/- tolerences, and he said look its right where ther suppose to be. He said all he had to do is adjust the TOE!!!

So what have we learned: if you lower you car you will have bad camber! If you lower it about 1.5" or less then your fine. But if you lower it more you will need a camber kit to save your tires. Your toe stays fine, your toe only gets afected when you lower you car and then put a camber kit on. This happens becasue your lowering your car, and when you lower your car the tie rods stay the same lenght. becasue whats happening is the top of the wheel is getting tucked in.. But when you have a lowered car with the factory tie rod length and you push out the upper ball joint(camber kit) then the tire is going to be straight but the tie rod is keeping the one side of the tire inward becasue, with the camber kit your pushing the top of the tire back out but the tie rod does't move with it!!!! Ex) when I did my left side when I pushed the upper balljoint out the tire went straight but the side of the tire torwards the door stayed pushed inwards torward the tie rod and the front of the tire point outward. Which = bad toe. Wearing your tire out even worse. If I did't make sense sorry. But I bet alot people know this and will under stand.

If you lower your get a cmaber kit, when you put it on, get your toe checked. Thats it , if you lower you car and you don't care about camber and tire wear, then you don't need to do anything. And you don't need an aligment, because alot of places (all) won't do an align ment with bad camber...

 

both my cars are lowered about 3"(no fender gap with 205/50-15).neither have any camber correction.i just have the toe set to zero front and back.i have almost NO uneven tire wear at all.over the course of a set of tires(about 30-40k miles on my daily driver)the inside edge of the tire will be worn smooth,gradually building to being able to barely see the tread pattern at the outermost edge(maybe 1/64" at the outer edge)
both my cars get aligned about every two years.
are you doing your own alignment?wear that does come from negative camber will be for the most part gradual across the tire surface.the type of wear pictured above is from toe out.
this not only applies to my car,but all my friend's cars who also have no problems.
take your car to a reputable alignment shop and have the toe set.unless something is bent,you won't have any more problems.
to the original poster-the tire rubbing the frame is only from full lock turning-it is not the cause of the wear.it's not uncommon for a wider tire to do that at full lock steering on these cars.
Chris

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by turbocivic96 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Its spelt T I R E S and yes its most likely your offset that causing it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

HaHa when I read the original post I knew someone would say something about that.
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Evs-One &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">toes kills tires, not camber.

BUt excessive camber along with excessively out of spec toe will eat them up</TD></TR></TABLE>

Very True

 

Camber doesnt wear your tires out as bad as the toe being out does. Hell most BMW's you see running around town have a noticable amount of negative camber in the rear from off the show room floor, and the tires still wear even. Most shops have the saying " Set the toe and let it go."

 

ahhhh the prize goes to all those who said it was the toe that was out.
Out enough to make the tyre grind so was a hefty wack that put it out.

The mag dimensions are fien and will be good to run on once i have a couple of new tyres on.

Until then its back to the lil 15's

 

I didnt read through alkl of this jibberish. Go to the library and read a book on suspension and allignemtns, and you'll leanr that camber and caster are stability angles, and toe is a tire wearing angle.

Like I said before, a combo of bad camber and toe will eat tires. But a properly toe'd car with slightly negative camber will not significally wear tires on the inside. How do I know?? Well, I do allignments just about everyday. My car has about -2.2* camber up front with 0 toe....and after over a YEAR on my Azenis, I have even tire wear....come test me.

Lowering the car changes the angle of the tie rods DIRECTLY effecting your toe. You're a backyard hack who should not be heard