Rear Tire Inside Wear

[stevo]

 

[TSLATed]

I have a 2016 Model S 75 with OEM Goodyear 19” tires. Still in good shape after 27k mikes. No abnormal wear and probably about 5k miles of tread remaining.

 

[Lasttoy]

There was a great article with many replies last week. Tesla is aligning the rear tires wrong. Too much toe out. Do a search here, you will find it. He shows the tires toed OUT too much. Mine were completely gone in Les than 10k miles. No one in my town will touch my car. I have appointment 9 Jan at Jax service center. We will have a talk about what he will adjust before he does alignment. I say it is too much neg camber on rear A arms. But Tesla has it wrong, seems to be only a few cars have the problem, but, when they do it's bad. Mine were destroyed.

 

[stevo]

There was a great article with many replies last week. Tesla is aligning the rear tires wrong. Too much toe out. Do a search here, you will find it. He shows the tires toed OUT too much. Mine were completely gone in Les than 10k miles. No one in my town will touch my car. I have appointment 9 Jan at Jax service center. We will have a talk about what he will adjust before he does alignment. I say it is too much neg camber on rear A arms. But Tesla has it wrong, seems to be only a few cars have the problem, but, when they do it's bad. Mine were destroyed.

Thank You! And Who The Heck checks the inner rear tire wear??????? This was a fluke that I found it.

 

[redi]

Search way back. Negative Camber in the Rear and Expensive Tires

Its primarily about rear toe out.

 

[DIL]

Known issue. Tesla must have come up with a fix for newer cars, judging by lower number of posts on the subject recently?

 

[steve841]

IMO ... if you have air suspension, this is the result of auto lowering.

My last S had that wear. After an alignment (which was within spec) the service Mgr told me that's the root cause.

Turned off auto lowering, never had anymore wear like that.

 

[BerTX]

IMO ... if you have air suspension, this is the result of auto lowering.

My last S had that wear. After an alignment (which was within spec) the service Mgr told me that's the root cause.

Turned off auto lowering, never had anymore wear like that.

This is my assessment, too. If you have auto-lowering set and drive a lot of highway miles, you have the problem to some extent -- some cars more, some less.

I played with raising and lowering during long flat stretches of road and saw very little difference in energy use, undetectable to me. I think the effectiveness of lowering to improve mpg on ICE cars is due to the cluttered underbody, so the Tesla does not get as much gain.

My tires are worth a lot more than any paltry range gain from lowering.

 

[Nick B]

If you have a RWD the best way to avoid this is to rotate the tires at each 5k... this way you can easily see if your tires are prematurely wearing off. I never thought about the low highway setting so I'll look into it as well.

I have a P85+ with non staggered setup and I'm running 19's

 

[Xenoilphobe]

Proof of tire wear benefits of accurate alignment and rear camber

 

[redi]

The general consensus from 3+ years (the early adopters/P85+ owners) on extreme inside shoulder rear tire wear was that it is primarily incorrect toe (out). This is usually first noted in the 21" wheels and particularly in the staggered cars with wider rear tires. Correct toe setting is pretty critical for the 265/35-21 tires. And Tesla was often setting it wrong (I've seen it happen personally multiple times).

Others have noted, and I can confirm, that the normal negative camber range and air suspension have very little to do with extreme wear and "corded" inner shoulders of the tires. Other high-end makes/models carrying significant camber and adjustable ride height can get their tires to end-of-life fairly normally, as can a Tesla, if the toe is not incorrectly set. And monitored.

Sure, less negative camber helps some, but the extreme problem is toe-out in the rear.

And 19" wheels/tires are much more forgiving on incorrect toe settings.

 

[N..8]

Proof of tire wear benefits of accurate alignment and rear camber

Anything less than -1.7 rear camber and the tires will always take a beating. I have a Vovlo C30 that had about the same spec as Tesla -2.5 - 1.0. It took me a bit to see they were set too low around -2.2 tires were making loud road noise at around 10k. Anyone can make a DIY device to check the camber setting. Don't use this method to adjust them but only to see about where you sit.

Something like this will work but it's best to only use the rim lip not the tire. I made a device using a digital level that only touches the rim lip.

 

[Chopr147]

The general consensus from 3+ years (the early adopters/P85+ owners) on extreme inside shoulder rear tire wear was that it is primarily incorrect toe (out).

I suspect this is the reason. My tires were rotated at about 6000 miles then not again since. The rear tires were so bad at 16000 miles the threading was showing. I spoke with the service center in Syosset about the alignment and tires. I had the tires replaced (good price at SC) and was told the alignment was fine. Syosset has been very good to me and I have no reason to think they lied. But then why did the tires wear like that so fast? I REALLY don't want to be changing tires every 15000 miles!

This was a fluke that I found it.

Or to the OP., Maybe NY roads just suck

 

[redi]

Syosset has been very good to me and I have no reason to think they lied.

Years ago when this was apparently happening a lot, I think most chalked it up to incompetence by the new, eager, and willing, but mostly inexperienced 20-something service staff. May be different now. Dunno. My service center has been great to me too, but the one thing they didn't seem to be able to do a correct alignment. And they bought me a couple of PS2s because of that issue when the car again corded out the insides in a few thousand miles after they "checked and set" it wrong again. I don't think you can "cord out" a set of 19s at all, but the fat soft 21s will do so quite quickly.

But thanks to the folks resurrecting this topic. My car was in for it's 4th annual a few months ago and they messed with my rear suspension (again) despite asking to have it left alone. I have been meaning to check my PSS rear inside shoulders and take the car into the track shop (folks I use to keep an eye on it) for an serious alignment (toe) check. Moving it back to the top of my priority list now - trust... but verify.

If you want to check yourself, you can use toe plates (I've done this), or one of our local members/experts wrote up a thread here How to measure toe yourself (with pictures)

 

[Chopr147]

Yes. I'm going to check. Maybe when the temp gets over 10 DEGREES!
I did mention to the SC that I will be back if it happens after another 15k miles. I was OK paying this time but new tires every 15k is unacceptable

 

[Lasttoy]

My right rear blew. I took it to JAX SC yesterday. Attached is the printout of the alignment. Seems the front was out also.
But. Man said no camber adjustment. It says different on paper.

 

[Don85D]

In my experience excessive tire wear is always a toe problem. In fact toe-in is set so that when road forces at speed push the wheels apart, the resulting toe is neutral. The suspension moves when under load at highway speeds so the correct toe-in needs to be set for that change in geometry. I would record the toe-in setting and watch tire wear. There is no reason not to have a custom toe setting for your car is that's what it takes.

A pro alignment shop will know what to do.

 

[Lasttoy]

I went to every alignment place in town, no one would touch it. I called several in Jax, same reply. That's why I had to go to the SC.
My parting comment, hope I don't come back for same issue. Florida is very opposite of Calif.

 

[Rusty1]

I just had a rear passenger side flat. Both rear tires are severely worn on inside. Anyone have any updates on what to do to prevent. Non flat side was at 39 psi. Is the tire that sensitive to pressure?

 

[sorka]

There was a great article with many replies last week. Tesla is aligning the rear tires wrong. Too much toe out. Do a search here, you will find it. He shows the tires toed OUT too much. Mine were completely gone in Les than 10k miles. No one in my town will touch my car. I have appointment 9 Jan at Jax service center. We will have a talk about what he will adjust before he does alignment. I say it is too much neg camber on rear A arms. But Tesla has it wrong, seems to be only a few cars have the problem, but, when they do it's bad. Mine were destroyed.

That makes no sense. Any toe out (negative toe) is too much toe out. The spec 0.15 to 0.25 toe (toe IN), not out.

Do you mean they were adjusting rear toe to too much toe in?

Not only that, but unless your an experienced track driver you want rear toe in. Rear toe out results in oversteer which is generally considered more dangerous than understeer which is why nearly all cars come with a positive toe spec.