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Plaid 21” rear tire woes - factory defect?

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They are the T0 marked Pirelli PZero Winter in 21" OEM size.
Interesting and very informative photographs. I hope others with the 21" Pirelli tires will provide pics of their tires as well.

Of course, according to the "experts" posting here (some that are likely employed by Michelin), those 21" Pirelli tires MUST also begin to come apart soon because . . . it's Tesla's fault/design that apparently WILL cause all 21" Model S tires to come apart at the inner sidewall. Of course, because they know it's Tesla's fault.

We'll be waiting . . . .
 
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They are the T0 marked Pirelli PZero Winter in 21" OEM size.

Keep an eye on them, looks like yours have already started wearing down the inside. You can see that some of the sipes are already disappearing on your tire on that inside edge. Snow tires are much softer, so you'll see small chunks coming off of them more so than the PS4S will.
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Sidewalls on 19s are softer than sidewalls on 20s which are softer than sidewalls on 21s. I think any alignment problems will show up more on wheels with stiffer sidewalls since they don't flex as much.

Prior to installing camber & toe arms, 20s on my car wore out the same way as the 21s except the wear band wasn't as narrow. it was wider, spread out more.
Im interested in the fact that you mention 20" tires. On my plaid I've had 20" TSW's since about 500 miles. The car has about 14k on the clock and all four of my 275/35/20 PS4's are wearing perfectly evenly, no shoulder wear whatsoever. I am able to rotate every 4k, but in doing so, there is absolutely no shoulder wear.
Do you have photos of you 20's?
 

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Im interested in the fact that you mention 20" tires. On my plaid I've had 20" TSW's since about 500 miles. The car has about 14k on the clock and all four of my 275/35/20 PS4's are wearing perfectly evenly, no shoulder wear whatsoever. I am able to rotate every 4k, but in doing so, there is absolutely no shoulder wear.
Do you have photos of you 20's?
Your tire sidewalls are taller plus they're skinnier, so the geometry is significantly different. i.e. you have move sidewall flex + the pinch point on the 21" OEM setup is further inward than you now have. That's why you're not seeing anything strange.
 
Your tire sidewalls are taller plus they're skinnier, so the geometry is significantly different. i.e. you have move sidewall flex + the pinch point on the 21" OEM setup is further inward than you now have. That's why you're not seeing anything strange.
Yeah, that's why Im asking @Russell why he's indicating that his 20" were showing sidewall shoulder wear.
 
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Im interested in the fact that you mention 20" tires. On my plaid I've had 20" TSW's since about 500 miles. The car has about 14k on the clock and all four of my 275/35/20 PS4's are wearing perfectly evenly, no shoulder wear whatsoever. I am able to rotate every 4k, but in doing so, there is absolutely no shoulder wear.
Do you have photos of you 20's?

Did you install adjustable camber and toe arms?

Mine are staggered so I can't rotate.

Pictures of my current tires, 285/35/20 PS All Seasons with 8.6k miles on them.

L20230123_100750.jpgR20230123_101027.jpg
 
If you have a heavy foot and love to drive the car hard, the constant load on the rear end under torque causes the car to squat which leads to heavy negative camber under load.. this in turn focuses the contact patch to the inner tire wall and eats them away.. No factory alignment can sort this..
Tesla's excessive negative rear camber is only 10-20% of the tread problem, and is non-adjustable on stock camber arm. Excessive rear toe is 80-90% of the tread problem, and is also non-adjustable on stock toe arms. Then, heavy acceleration forces the entire rear subframe to move forward, further increasing the already huge rear toe, and no wonder the tires disintegrate.

Tesla's factory alignment specs are complete garbage. There are no other production vehicles that spec 0.18 degrees of toe as an allowable value, yet every post in this thread that says "Tesla did my alignment" has attached a picture showing Tesla has their rear toe at 0.18 degrees, unacceptable.

Model S/X drivers with 21s have only 2 options:
1. Replace tires every 5-10k
2. Install aftermarket adjustable camber and toe arms, and correct the alignment to sensible specs instead of Tesla's junk specs.

As @Sam1 has already explained, 19s are much less (but not immune) to the bad alignments because of greater available sidewall flexing.

Anyone that doesn't believe this? Let me run your 21s on my Model S with aftermarket arms and corrected alignment. I drive like a bat out of hell, but I'll still get 30k out of your 21" factory Michelins (because I've got 45k on my tires already, with more remaining). I'm running -0.4 camber and +0.02 toe on all 4 corners.
 
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Tesla's excessive negative rear camber is only 10-20% of the tread problem, and is non-adjustable on stock camber arm. Excessive rear toe is 80-90% of the tread problem, and is also non-adjustable on stock toe arms. Then, heavy acceleration forces the entire rear subframe to move forward, further increasing the already huge rear toe, and no wonder the tires disintegrate.

Tesla's factory alignment specs are complete garbage. There are no other production vehicles that spec 0.18 degrees of toe as an allowable value, yet every post in this thread that says "Tesla did my alignment" has attached a picture showing Tesla has their rear toe at 0.18 degrees, unacceptable.

Model S/X drivers with 21s have only 2 options:
1. Replace tires every 5-10k
2. Install aftermarket adjustable camber and toe arms, and correct the alignment to sensible specs instead of Tesla's junk specs.

As @Sam1 has already explained, 19s are much less (but not immune) to the bad alignments because of greater available sidewall flexing.

Anyone that doesn't believe this? Let me run your 21s on my Model S with aftermarket arms and corrected alignment. I drive like a bat out of hell, but I'll still get 30k out of your 21" factory Michelins (because I've got 45k on my tires already, with more remaining). I'm running -0.4 camber and +0.02 toe on all 4 corners.
The factory toe arms are already adjustable, you don't need to buy those.

Only reason I put UP toe arms on mine because the first shop didn't tighten the OEM ones after the alignment, and the factory ones jumped threads and were damaged. This also caused damage to the brand new @N2itive arms and made them unsafe so I had @UnpluggedP overnight some of their camber arms to fix the issue.

Once the issue is addressed with the first shop's insurance or through legal means, I'll share that specific info.