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Tread wear question

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Tesla rotated my tires today. With 7,800 miles, all four tires measure 7mm outer side, 7mm middle and 6mm inside. These are Michelin Primacy, 19" tires on a MS-70D. Close to 80% of the miles on the car are highway miles as opposed to local miles. Tire pressure has been kept at about 45 psi, cold. A significant number of those miles were in high temperature weather, 90 to 102 or slightly more.

What does it mean when the inside edge of the tire, all tires in this case, wear slightly faster than the center and out side edge? Thank you
 
There's a thousand sites on the web with this kind of information...

Here's one Tire Tread Wear: Causes And Symptoms - Tomorrows Technician

Inner-Edge Tread Wear

Inner-edge tire tread wear is the most common tread wear problem most technicians see. The angles causing this type of wear are typically negative toe and camber. For parts, there are three component sources of the inner-edge tread wear: bushings, springs and loads.



For Tesla, or any car, a particular "factory defined" alignment achieves specific goals. You are also free to re-align for your own goals. An alignment expert can talk you through this...

Losing a little rubber on the inner edge due to toe or camber ... can be expected and acceptable if you like the way the car is handling. You're going to burn a little rubber off there... but the return might be an extra planted feeling on hard fast turns .. and quicker quick turns.

If you dial all the toe and camber out... you get a more typical complacent sedan. Although a Tesla will never feel like a Ford Taurus, or a Toyota Camry you're going in that direction.

Can you afford 1mm of "more fun"? ... then no alignment needed. It's even all around. Excellent!

If you think it's worth it, you could remount the rubber across each axle on the car and balance the wear out a bit... but... tire machines on rims has its toll on wear and tear too.
 
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It means that the alignment isn't correct. Just because the alignment machine says that everything is "in-spec" doesn't mean anything if the machine is out of calibration.
 
There's a thousand sites on the web with this kind of information...

Here's one Tire Tread Wear: Causes And Symptoms - Tomorrows Technician

Inner-Edge Tread Wear

Inner-edge tire tread wear is the most common tread wear problem most technicians see. The angles causing this type of wear are typically negative toe and camber. For parts, there are three component sources of the inner-edge tread wear: bushings, springs and loads.



For Tesla, or any car, a particular "factory defined" alignment achieves specific goals. You are also free to re-align for your own goals. An alignment expert can talk you through this...

Losing a little rubber on the inner edge due to toe or camber ... can be expected and acceptable if you like the way the car is handling. You're going to burn a little rubber off there... but the return might be an extra planted feeling on hard fast turns .. and quicker quick turns.

If you dial all the toe and camber out... you get a more typical complacent sedan. Although a Tesla will never feel like a Ford Taurus, or a Toyota Camry you're going in that direction.

Can you afford 1mm of "more fun"? ... then no alignment needed. It's even all around. Excellent!

If you think it's worth it, you could remount the rubber across each axle on the car and balance the wear out a bit... but... tire machines on rims has its toll on wear and tear too.

Thank you for the break down. The car handles very well, very nimble but cannot be thrown around like a typical sports car but so much more agile than any ICE sedan. Hard to believe it is as heavy as it is. Guess I will leave it be until its ready for its annual.
 
Or if you don't want to wait, I think most alignment shops around here will do a look-see on the rack for you if they're not busy, for free, it's so fast to set some up now with laser guided wheel clamps. It will show you if your alignment is out of spec at which point they hope you'll get an alignment done then and now if it's bad! Can always say "no thanks" not severe enough. It's also a test to see if they have Tesla in their database. Any good shop would have it by now.
 
I got 50,000 miles on my original Michelin Primacy tires. All of them wore more on the inside edge than elsewhere but at 50K miles I'm quite happy with the result so I wouldn't change anything.

IMG_8655.jpg
 
Just for reference, I love my Michelin Primacy tires. I'm at 30k miles now, and I measured this weekend and have between 5-6/32" left per tire. I have a higher wh/mi lifetime (325ish).

I'm hoping to make it to 50k miles, but I'd be OK with 45k miles on this set.
 
This might be a total newbie question, but with the 19" factory Primacy tires, how often do you rotate them to achieve these great (40k+) lifespans?
It's more about keeping the alignment correct and keeping the tire pressure up than it is about about rotation. Any rotation method can be used, but I believe most just do front to back because it's the easiest.
 
This might be a total newbie question, but with the 19" factory Primacy tires, how often do you rotate them to achieve these great (40k+) lifespans?

I assume the factory cyclones be rotated just front to back?

Rotate every 5000 miles. Do the first rotation on any new set of tires early, at 2500 miles. Some may argue that rotating this often isn't necessary for even tread wear, and in a lot of cases it isn't, but I believe the tires will last longer and remain quieter later in their life if this rotation schedule is adhered to.

Rotation pattern can be debated, as there are multiple valid ways to do it. However, I feel that the rearward-cross pattern works best for even wear and keeping the tires quiet. You can use the rearward-cross pattern on RWD or AWD vehicles, as long as the tires are in a square setup (this means that all 4 tires and wheels are the same size), and use non-directional tires. All non-performance Teslas (non-"P" models) come from the factory in a square setup with non-directional tires.

Performance model Teslas (most of them) come from the factory with a staggered setup (this means that the rear tires and wheels are larger than the front tires and wheels). You cannot use the rearward-cross (or forward-cross, or X-pattern, or same-side swap) pattern with a staggered setup. The only rotation option is same-axle swap, and you must be using non-directional tires.

For completeness, here is a full tire rotation schedule for all Tesla models, with both factory and aftermarket wheels/tires:

Abbreviations
FL=Front Left
BL=Back Left
FR=Front Right
BR=Back Right

Rotation Patterns
Rearward Cross: BL -> FL -> BR -> FR -> BL
Forward Cross: FL -> BL -> FR -> BR -> FL
X-Pattern: FL <-> BR, and BL <-> FR
Same-Side Swap: FL <-> BL, and FR <-> BR
Same-Axle Swap: FL <-> FR, and BL <-> BR

Recommended pattern for each combination of RWD/AWD, Square/Staggered Setup, Non-Directional/Directional Tires
RWD, Square, Non-Directional (Factory setup for non-P RWD cars and some P RWD cars): Rearward Cross
RWD, Square, Directional: Same-Side Swap
RWD, Staggered, Non-Directional: (Factory setup for most P RWD cars): Same-Axle Swap
RWD, Staggered, Directional: Rotation not possible without dismount/remount of tires

AWD, Square, Non-Directional (Factory setup for non-P AWD cars and some P AWD cars): Rearward Cross, or X-Pattern
AWD, Square, Directional: Same-Side Swap
AWD, Staggered, Non-Directional (Factory setup for most P AWD cars): Same-Axle Swap
AWD, Staggered, Directional: Rotation not possible without dismount/remount of tires


No Tesla was delivered from the factory with directional tires, so they would have to be aftermarket for you to have them. Directional tires are easily identified because the tread pattern makes a repeating "V" shape. They are also marked on the sidewall with an arrow indicating the correct direction of rotation. Very few aftermarket tires in the Tesla sizes are directional, so having these will be something of a unicorn.

Note that if you have multiple tire sets (e.g. summer and winter set) that the rotation schedule and patterns apply individually to each set. Your summer set might be staggered, so must use same-axle swap pattern, while the winter set might be square, and so should use rearward cross.

Note that all Tesla and 99% of aftermarket wheels do not have a direction or side of the car that they belong on. The Tesla cyclones and turbines can rotate to any position provided that the tire that's on them conforms to the rules above.
 
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"Performance model Teslas (most of them) come from the factory with a staggered setup (this means that the rear tires and wheels are larger than the front tires and wheels)"

That does not appear to be correct. Only the 21" wheels come staggered, the 19" wheels are identical for front and rear. Or are you also saying that most performance models have 21" wheels?
 
"Performance model Teslas (most of them) come from the factory with a staggered setup (this means that the rear tires and wheels are larger than the front tires and wheels)"

That does not appear to be correct. Only the 21" wheels come staggered, the 19" wheels are identical for front and rear. Or are you also saying that most performance models have 21" wheels?

It's fairly common that P models are ordered with 21" wheels. Yes, if you do get 19" wheels they will be square.
 
Now that I think about it, I guess that's an interesting question.

Are all 21" wheel sets from Tesla staggered? If you order 21" wheels on a P model, I'm fairly sure they're staggered, although I think there were some short periods of time in the past where they were delivering 21" square sets.

If you order a non-P model with 21" wheels, are they square or staggered? Have those varied over time also?