Chuck Little

2007 coupe, with bad tire wear on insides of both front tires. Still feels good at highway speeds, so I may wait until spring arrives here in Michigan before doing an alignment and new front tires.

I would like to do away with the Goodyear runflats and install new tires at least on the front. I haven't decided yet on brand and/or runflats yet, but would like to have some advice on whether to mix brands and type until the rears need replacing. They are standing tall, so I am guessing it could be a year before replacement time on them.

I don't track the car. I use it as a daily driver, and it is only about 10,000 miles a year.

Should I just bite the bullet and replace all four now, or stretch the pocketbook and enjoy a few more beers until I have to? I don't want it to handle funny or be dangerous.

TIA

Baxter's Dad

My humble opinion;
I always replace tires in sets of four. All will match and all will have the same mileage.
A good alignment along with a fresh set of quality tires and you'll be set for a couple of years at least.
There's places to save money and places to spend money. Tires on a high performance sports car would be in the "spend" category.

owc6

Definitely ditch the GYs. I have never had any problems mixing tires, but have only had a few tens of thousand miles overlap (), and I don't track it.

Whatever you do, get an alignment! I've been made fun of here, because I get alignments a LOT. But, then I get 40,000 + mi. on a set of tires. Worth every penny, IMO, and it drives smoother regardless.


lisa

LMB-Z

Just had an alignment done today. Front tires are pretty worn on the inside. Replacing them tomorrow with a set of Michelins. I have Nitto's on the rear. I don't track my car and don't think the mismatched tires matter. Just my opinion. Its also my weekend car so not a DD.

K9KUZ

2005 model purchased new: alignment made at 10,000 miles with unusual wear patterns showing on all tires. I told shop to give it a "street" alignment. The wear stopped! At 29K, I replaced all 4 with Firestone run-flats. Perfect.
Funny - then last year I traded in the 2005 with the new Firestone's. The used 2011 that I bought had some funny tire wear (only 5K miles). So, I had them move my new Firestone's to the new car.

owc6

When I bought my '09 Z06, I had them take it to the shop to give me an alignment (and an oil change), and to show me the paper before I would take delivery of it. The sales manager didn't understand why, and thought I was nuts, "The car has been sitting on the showroom floor for two years and you are the first to drive it.," he said. I told him "No alignment, no deal."

When he brought back the alignment paper, he was flabbergasted! "How did you know?" I told him that I had this same problem when I took delivery of my '05. Way out of what they used for their range. Looking back (knowing what I know, now), it wasn't so much out of spec, but super aggressive coming from the factory, which is not good for the majority of us.


lisa

darr3239

Corvettes seem to come with more of a performance alignment setting, which seems to wear the inside edges with "normal" driving. Here is what is recommended by Pfadt.

Pfadt Corvette Alignment Recommendations

Performance Street
Front min max
Camber (deg) -0.7 -0.9
Caster (deg) 7.5 8.5
Total Toe -1/16" (0.17°) 0 (0°)
Rear
Camber (deg) -0.4 -0.6
Total Toe -1/16" (0.17°) 0 (0°)
Notes
These settings will provide good performance and good tire wear

Performance Street - Track Use with Street Tires
Front min max
Camber (deg) -1.1 -1.3
Caster (deg) 7.5 8.5
Total Toe -1/16" (0.17°) 0 (0°)
Rear
Camber (deg) -0.7 -0.9
Total Toe -1/8" (0.33°) -1/16" (0.17°)
Notes
These settings will provide good all around performance. The tires will wear the inside edges in street use and the outside edges on the race track. This is a good dual purpose alignment.

LedZepper

I had to replace all four soon after buying my '06 (pre-owned) and had her aligned a little less aggressively than the spec; less toe and camber. I don't think I sacrificed much performance for the street, and the tires are wearing evenly.

I think it's ok to replace just two at a time, but I always feel better by doing all four. Good luck!

LedZepper

Helpful comment. Learned about this long ago.

crAzy

Front should last longer than years. That is if you are driving the car like it should be

AORoads

Of the advice from above, I practice frequent alignments and don't mix brands or types of tires. Here's some info for the OP, if you choose to read it, from TireRack:

Mixing tires: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...jsp?techid=136

Notice the last sentence of the first para: "Additionally, drivers should never mix winter tires with all-season/summer tires, or mix run-flat tires with non-run-flat tires."

Tide Will Roll!

Which Michelins you getting?
I'm in the market and thinking of switching from the AS Plus to the AS 3...or some other brand besides Michelin.

Thanks for info.

Justasheet

As was stated, the Pfadt alignment specs will fix this in the future. Mine were worn to the cords on the inside. Scary that I didn't see it sooner but I wasn't expecting the tires to wear like that so quickly.
Jeff

Eritosthenes

I was going to recommend the Pfadt alignment specs too, but the ones quoted above show the same camber spec as GM stock. To me that's very obviously the cause of your wear problem. If you have your camber set to -0.1 degree rather than -0.45 degree, your tires will be far closer to vertical and not leaning on their inside edges. This is the setting I have used on my '07 vert for the last five years and my front tire wear (which had been horrible) has been very even.

BTW, I bought Firestones when my GYs wore out. They're nice, but I'm told by all the experts that the Michelins are better.

phileaglesfan

Shame on GM for putting a performance alignment on the Corvette.

I've had this alignment for around 13k miles on my 13GS and the tires have another 5k or so from my 11 GS Vert.



Yes, 18k miles, with GM's "performance" alignment on my Michelin Super Sports and I still have around 7/32ds of tread left. I do hang out with the local exotic club and we have tons of driving roads in the local area.

There is nothing wrong with GM's factory alignment if set to the center of GM specs. Unfortunately a lot of dealers will say it is within specs. Most people also assume that camber is the tire killer. It is not, unless you use a lot of camber. 1 degree of camber is not excessive. The problem is with the toe setting. Too much toe in or any toe out will cause issues. Goodyear tires are junk also and by the time you realize a wear problem, most of the life of the tire is gone. My 13GS grips like crazy, even better than stock, definitely a lot better than when I had my 11 GS Vert set to aftermarket specs for better tire wear.

Justasheet

Good catch

crAzy

My alignment place wouldn't go by the pfadt alignment and cover it under their lifetime warranty.

G Morse

I had the same problem with my 2007 coupe. I got about 30,000 miles on the front tires. I took the car to my dealer and told him I wanted the front end aligned for maximum tire mileage. I now have over 40,000 miles on the new tires and expect to get at least 10,000 more. I don't know what settings he used, but whatever he did, it worked. I do all my aggressive driving mostly in a straight line, so I am not all that concerned about the performance aspect.

Eritosthenes

I'm sorry, but that's simply not accurate. The factory camber spec of -0.45 degree (+/- 0.6 degree if I recall correctly) is the so-called "performance" setting that all Corvettes get in two minutes at the Bowling Green assembly plant. They hardly ever need that in normal street driving. As I said, negative camber tilts the tire inward, placing more weight on the inside corners. When turning left, the car leans to the right and the right front leans outward toward vertical. This flattens the full tread on the road, which in performance terms is desirable. When turning to the right, the same thing happens to the left front. When driving down a straight road, which most Corvettes do 99.9% of the time, the stock camber setting causes premature wear to the inside corners of the front tires. The toe setting is what tends to center the wheel. A mis-set toe will tend to cause the tires to scrub across the contact patch. This will also cause premature wear, but only where the camber has positioned the contact patch. With an overly aggressive camber setting, like the factory spec, that's on the inside corner. Thus a bad toe setting will tend to amplify problems caused by the primary culprit: the camber setting.

I'm talking about pure street driving. If you track your car ("driving roads"), then by all means use the factory specs.

All else being equal, relaxing the camber to -0.1 degree can extend the front tire life of most C6s with base or F55 magnetic suspensions and GS2 tires to 24,000 - 26,000 miles. I've read a few claims of more than 30,000 miles. Those with Z51 suspensions and F1 tires might last 18,000 - 22,000 miles. When set to the factory camber spec, front tires commonly wear down to steel cord at their inside corners by 13,000 miles -- sometimes by as few as 8,000 miles.

Justasheet