I was under the car changing the oil when I noticed severe tread wear along the inside edge of the front tires. One tire even has some cords showing. Obviously, I’m getting new tires ASAP but I’m concerned about what could be going wrong. After some research, it seems this indicates too much negative camber, but it appears that S197s don’t have any way to adjust camber at all. What exactly is causing this and what can I do about it???

 

Is your car still under warranty? If it is they may even get you a new pair of tires.And hopefully fix the problem.

 

With wear that bad I would think the negative camber would be so great you would be able to see it. I'd talk to the dealership. They should be able to check it and adjust the camber.

 

if such wear is caused by negative camber, you should be able to see your front tires sitting inwards / \ without the need for any measuring equipment..
is your car lowered at all, or are you just a spirited driver?

in order to adjust the camber, you need to enlarge the strut-to-wheel spindle mounting hole (the lower one) and installing a cam adjusting bolt.

 

Adjusting the camber (-1 degree) is required if you have aftermarket springs. The Eibach Camber Bolts are less than $30 a set. You won't need to resize any holes.

If you haven't adjusted any suspension parts and you have less than 20K on the car, then it's a Ford issue. Have them check your alignment on the rack and give you a print out. It will post all the numbers that are out in RED. Camber, Caster, Toe should all be within the factory range if you haven't done anything to your suspension.

Good news is the KDWS tires are dirt cheap.

Good luck.

 

I just had a set(4) of KDWS installed and balanced for 369.00.You can't beat that for an 18' ZR rated tire.

 

I had the same problem with my E46 but it was because i knew nothing of tire rotation that was after 30k

 

How many miles on these here tires? And have you been rotating them I presume?
(For example, maybe those were on the rears during some fun in the empty parking lots!)

 

Had almost the same on the first set and think that my many trips to a near cloverleaf to the hiway down to next exit and back wasted the inside of the tires. and not rotating them.

 

Also looks like an over inflation issue going on with the center of the tire worn. The S197's do have a slight bit of negative camber set in from the factory, so if you have done the miles on these tires then I would think this would be somewhat typical if the rotation wasn't being kept up with.

 

I want to go from 235's to 255's on the stock suspension. Will I need to have the camber adjusted as well, or face the same problem?

 

couldnt inside/front be from a toe-out situation?

 

Mine were doing the exact same thing, luckily I noticed before I hit the cords. I took it down to my local alignment shop expecting to shell out big bucks on camber plates; however the camber measured dead on. It was the toe that needed to be adjusted and was causing the wear.

Here's a snippet I found on the web "toe misalignment tends to roll the shoulder of the tire under as it scrubs producing wear on the inner or outer ribs only. Toe-in will wear the outer rib while toe-out will cause wear on the inner rib. In both instances, wear can be aggravated even more if the tires are under inflated."

I do have lowering springs (Steeda ultra-lights), and did have it aligned after installation. Best I can fogure there has been some "settling" since the installation.

Tim

 

Looks like that to me. My friend's Honda CR-V did that with its first set of tires, so when she replaced them we had them to an alignment. The toe was way off.

 

Yeah, I instantly thought Toe issue when I saw your photo. Time for an alignment.

 

If it's toe the worn part of the tire will feel smooth when you rub one way and feathered when you rub the other way. If it's camber it will be smooth both ways.

 

+1 I suspect it's the toe-in as well.

 

I'm going to bet the tires were over inflated and never rotated.

 

Go to a tire shop. We can look at it all day, but you can't really tell without some equipment and knowledge rather it's misaligned, toe-in, camber, etc.

 

Poco,

Where in the world did you get FOUR of these installed for just $396??? I'm pricing four 255/50-17s from Tire Rack and they are $151 EACH plus shipping, plus installation, plus balancing...

I like YOUR price MUCH BETTER!