HELP! In May 2021 I had my 2021 M3P lowered with Eibach springs maybe just an 1" with 1/2"spacers (I think) to come out even with the fender wells. It looks great. The shop said after lowering, an alignment was done on it. Now with just 14k on the car I had to have the tires replaced because the inside of the tires were completely bald. Tires were rotated at 6k diligently. The shop never said anything about needing rear camber arms to adjust for the negative camber, but others are telling me I need to do this or I will be replacing my new tires in a year again. Anyone have any experience with this? And is there any need for fronts as well? I need to do this as soon as possible to eliminate wear on my new tires. Is it possible the shop did not align the car after lowering it?
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Tire wear and lowering M3P
- Thread starter Kidd
- Start date
Typically you get a print out of specs after getting an alignment; did you get one of those? If not, can you ask the shop for one?
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't align your car after lowering it! You'd have an alignment printout (hopefully) if they did.
..And given the toe arms are in the front on both axles, lowering will cause toe out, which leads to inner tire wear.
If it did wear on both the front and rear this is almost for sure what happened.
Bring it to a different shop and get an alignment check (many will do it for free). If you do have toe out on both axles, time to have a convo with your first shop.
Hopefully the shop offers a warranty on their work, but with most aftermarket parts and especially customer supplied parts, there is no warranty. Most aftermarket lowering springs will likely take a set and/or sag over time as well so the alignment right after the installation is likely out of spec a few thousand miles later.
If they didn't produce an alignment sheet right after the install, it's highly suspect. A new alignment check would tell you as well just how far out it was- springs don't settle so far that they put the alignment out as far as the initial lowering does. You can even do some math and guess how far out it will be from lowering it.
Or you know, just look at the toe adjustment bolts and see if they have ever even been cracked loose from the factory settings.
Occhis
Member
Bumping this for me. I have inside tire wear on my M3P lowered as well. 1 inch on eibachs. I had the car aligned after the spring install. Guess it’s time for another one. I too was under the impression a slight drop wouldn’t require new parts. I had a hard time finding a shop willing to align a Tesla. Any advantage to going to tesla directly for this?
You will likely have less luck with Tesla than another company; Tesla doesn't like working on modified cars.
I went to a local company that specializes in track cars; I'd check with your local Tesla group or some race group.
If we are talking about something around 1/2", the alignment isn't affected that much. Beyond that you will get excessive static camber. Dynamically the rear will gain negative camber as you accelerate and the vehicle squads further contributing to the wear on the inside of the tire. On cars my shop have lowered 1"+ more than half of the time you will at least need rear camber arms(UP, MPP...). Any reputable tire or alignment shop can align a Tesla. It is just an independent front and multi link rear.
What's your threshold for too much camber?
Poke around on yelp or other places for independent shops, not the Firestones of the world. It's a normal car with normal alignment.
Following. Before I installed my springs, I am fairly certain I got comfortable that new arms were not needed. At least for eibach springs (the non-aggressive version). Is this a question of slightly more premature wear or significantly more wear? Eibach states1 inch in front and 1.1 in the rear.
This will all depend on how you drive. MORE camber can reduce wear on very aggressively driven cars. For highway cruisers, low camber is what you want. As with all things, it depends...
In my experience with my personal and customer cars, up to -2 is tolerable. When driven in a mild manner there shouldn't be any excessive inside tire wear as long as the toe is not out of spec.
What are your specs and are you experiencing any abnormal tire wear? It will be great to collect more data for future reference.
I'm not a good reference as I get less wear with more camber due to all my wear coming from the track.
The Model S/X owners run camber correction even on factory cars since Tesla allows up to 2.5° stock, and they get bad inside tire wear. They tend to run under 1° once they correct. My X rear tires wore out the inside edge completely with plenty of tread everywhere else at 2.2°.
Just a daily cruiser around town. I'll go for another alignment and see how it goes. Appreciate the advice on staying away from Tesla. I'll try to find a decent local shop.
Yes, I align in the height that I drive in all the time. The S/X will only really let you drive any distance in "standard" or "low" (out of very high, high, standard, low, very low). So the swing actually isn't that much between standard and low, but you can chose one of those as the default and might as well align there too.
Last edited:
Similar threads
