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Plaid 21” rear tire woes - factory defect?
- Thread starter KOL2000
- Start date
Indeed. Although toe was adjustable too previous to Palladium but it was a concentric bolt rather than a tie rod which now allows for far more range. The typical -2.4 degrees of camber on the refresh is enough by itself to destroy tires. Bad toe can accelerate even more of course.
Refresh rear camber adjustment
Don't know if anyone has noticed this yet, but the way that the upper rear arms are mounted to the upper cradle, it should be possible to remove excess negative camber with a shim between the bracket and the cradle. The previous design had the bushing mount tabs integrated directly into the...
teslamotorsclub.com
But I better be quiet now before I get accused again of regurgitating stuff I found on Google.
Factory toe arms are good and adjustable. I swapped mine out with UP ones solely because they were able to overnight a set to me when the car was down. OEM are pretty darn solid.
Toe arm bushings are stiff AF. They're different than the control arm bushings
Not sure what's funny with that. I ripped all four compression and tension arm bushings on the front, and broke a camber arm on the rear because of an incorrect shop install, OEM toe arms held up fine, they were just changed for precaution because I flog on the car nonstop and we weren't sure if it jumped a thread when the camber arm broke.
Uncertain at the extent you've been through on suspension work with the car that warrants a statement that the OEM ones suck, but I'd love to hear about anything more than "spherical are better, therefore OEM sucks".
Uncertain at the extent you've been through on suspension work with the car that warrants a statement that the OEM ones suck, but I'd love to hear about anything more than "spherical are better, therefore OEM sucks".
n2mb_racing
Active Member
For the umpteenth time, THIS IS NOT TIRE WEAR.
This is your OEM Michelin tire DEFECT. The tires come apart internally and this is how it manifests, which occurs next to never with the exact same suspension and the OEM Pirelli 19" tires . . . .
Your replacement tires should have been FREE, as mine were, as this is a SAFETY DEFECT from poor tire design and/or poor tire manufacturing quality:
A. Nearly impossible to visually discover due to location.
B. Potentially fatal failure should it come apart completely during very high speed driving.
It would not be the first time it's happened, but back then it only killed a few hundred people; let's not wait to see who will be killed with these Michelin tire failures, shall we?
Please help save someone's life in the years ahead by adding your complaint and photo to the large pile stacking up at NHTSA, and then see about getting the $1k back from Michelin (which may now be more difficult since you no longer have the tires to return to Michelin?):
1. Report a Safety Problem | NHTSA
2. Michelin Tire Support & Michelin Customer Support | Michelin
Please keep us posted.
Thanks.
HighPotential
Member
Nosken
Active Member
When you look at many of the photos, to my untrained eye, if this is alignment, wouldn’t the nearest tread row also show lots of wear? To wear the inner edge this much, it seems that the alignment would have to be WAY off and look comical on inspection. That area of the tire is not in the contact patch.
Another test, has anyone replaced the tires with a different brand, and had similar issues?
The linked photo from early in the thread shows what I’m trying to describe.
Another test, has anyone replaced the tires with a different brand, and had similar issues?
The linked photo from early in the thread shows what I’m trying to describe.
When the camber is so negative, the tire ends up riding on the inside and the weight of the heavy EV is compressing the inner sidewall far more than a lighter car and flatter camber. It's not as big of a deal on the 19" wheels because the taller sidewalls can compress more without without creating a sharp bend in the sidewall.
When you look at many of the photos, to my untrained eye, if this is alignment, wouldn’t the nearest tread row also show lots of wear? To wear the inner edge this much, it seems that the alignment would have to be WAY off and look comical on inspection. That area of the tire is not in the contact patch.
Another test, has anyone replaced the tires with a different brand, and had similar issues?
The linked photo from early in the thread shows what I’m trying to describe.
Excessive neg camber is going to bear the weight of the rolling vehicle where it's closest to the stiff sidewall v. evenly distributing load across the tread, thus the crazy wear you're seeing in your handy pic, thanks.
And we need to stop parroting the bush league Tesla Service advisor excuse/crutch about this heavy EV notion as if the Model S weighs as much as a 3 ton truck. The Model S is 4,700-800lbs. That's not abnormal even for an ICE car similarly sized. It's one of the lightest mid-sized EV sedans on the market, if not the lightest in its class, to this day.
Speaking to my rear wear so far, I've got 5K miles on a new set of T2 PS4S tires on my Model S Plaid. I show no noticeable wear on any part of the tread having tamed down camber to a precise -1.1x riding low from fresh. No ghetto shims. Fully forged adjustable N2itive arms.
The real test is whether I can see 20K+ miles out of a set. I'm keeping a close eye. TBD
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That type of wear is because of too much toe out and the inside of the tire being dragged/scrubbed on the road as it's moving. Camber isolates that issue to the specific strip you see in the pic.When you look at many of the photos, to my untrained eye, if this is alignment, wouldn’t the nearest tread row also show lots of wear? To wear the inner edge this much, it seems that the alignment would have to be WAY off and look comical on inspection. That area of the tire is not in the contact patch.
Another test, has anyone replaced the tires with a different brand, and had similar issues?
The linked photo from early in the thread shows what I’m trying to describe.
With 0 camber, the scrub would occur across the entire tire.
So it's a combination of two issues that create the specific problem.
Hi TSLA Pilot,For the umpteenth time, THIS IS NOT TIRE WEAR.
This is your OEM Michelin tire DEFECT. The tires come apart internally and this is how it manifests, which occurs next to never with the exact same suspension and the OEM Pirelli 19" tires . . . .
Your replacement tires should have been FREE, as mine were, as this is a SAFETY DEFECT from poor tire design and/or poor tire manufacturing quality:
A. Nearly impossible to visually discover due to location.
B. Potentially fatal failure should it come apart completely during very high speed driving.
It would not be the first time it's happened, but back then it only killed a few hundred people; let's not wait to see who will be killed with these Michelin tire failures, shall we?
Please help save someone's life in the years ahead by adding your complaint and photo to the large pile stacking up at NHTSA, and then see about getting the $1k back from Michelin (which may now be more difficult since you no longer have the tires to return to Michelin?):
1. Report a Safety Problem | NHTSA
2. Michelin Tire Support & Michelin Customer Support | Michelin
Please keep us posted.
Thanks.
I just wore through the inside edge of my second set of rear Michelins. I would like to get a free tire replacement. I clicked the link you posted and was going to contact them through the email but the available email categories for contact were all related to purchase. Who, how and what department at Michelin would your recommend I contact? I bought the tires from Tesla and they were only interested in selling me new tires. Thanks!
For the umpteenth time, THIS IS NOT TIRE WEAR.
This is your OEM Michelin tire DEFECT. The tires come apart internally and this is how it manifests, which occurs next to never with the exact same suspension and the OEM Pirelli 19" tires . . . .
Your replacement tires should have been FREE, as mine were, as this is a SAFETY DEFECT from poor tire design and/or poor tire manufacturing quality:
A. Nearly impossible to visually discover due to location.
B. Potentially fatal failure should it come apart completely during very high speed driving.
It would not be the first time it's happened, but back then it only killed a few hundred people; let's not wait to see who will be killed with these Michelin tire failures, shall we?
Please help save someone's life in the years ahead by adding your complaint and photo to the large pile stacking up at NHTSA, and then see about getting the $1k back from Michelin (which may now be more difficult since you no longer have the tires to return to Michelin?):
1. Report a Safety Problem | NHTSA
2. Michelin Tire Support & Michelin Customer Support | Michelin
Please keep us posted.
Thanks.
Can't see how it's the tires fault. After installing camber & toe arms, my Michelins stopped having inside edge wear.
No use in arguing with them at this point. Not a single person in 2 years now that has installed aftermarket arms and got an alignment has had an issue, even though almost all of us did prior to that.
The only people that are blaming Michelin are the ones still on the factory setup, 4 sets of tires in refusing to listen to the collective.
Because it appears to occur next to ZERO times on the OEM 19" Pirelli tires, despite the same suspension . . . yet the sidewall/tread delamination is very, very common among seemingly every Michelin 21" OEM Plaid rear tire.
Is multifactorial an acceptable answer? It's also true that no one had this failure mode on the non michelin tires (whether 21" or 19").
I'm all for correcting toe if it's off from the factory (believe it or not, it isn't always). I'm not a fan of neutering camber. Regardless, it's pretty apparent that, for whatever reason, the Michelins seem to be more sensitive to the factory alignment than other tires.
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