Hey guys, i've been monitoring my tread wear since I got the Falken FK452s in June of 2008, now just over 20,000 miles on them.

I've made a few adjustments to my alignment settings about midway into these, based on suggestions from brutal and other techs. I was getting some considerable wear on the inside of the front tires, not just feathering, but tread depth was lower by about 2/32 compared to the outside tread depth. (forgive me, but I seem to have lost my first exam numbers that i posted on here) To compensate for the difference, I started to request a toe-in condition, right at the edge of the specification range for the car, and it seems to have helped based on these latest numbers.

In addition, my rear tires have undergone some uneven wear also, but instead of inside/outside discrepancies, the center wear was exceeding the edges. Therefore, I have reduced my rear tire pressures from 32 psi to 30 psi. I am hoping this will help, but it may be too late for these tires.

Q: What do you other XK8/R owners keep your tire pressures at, and do you see the same type of tread wear patterns? And, any other way to help the rear wear... even lower pressures?

Here are my current tread readings...it looks like my rears have hit their markers already also -

 

I took mine from 32 to 30 but have not taken any readings yet. I also had all filled with nitro.

 

Forgive my ignorance if this is silly, but would a toe-in request not further exacerbate inner-edge tyre wear. Should it not be a toe-out request?

I'm having the same problem on my car, despite the wheel alignment being spot-on. Guess it could be sagging springs. My tie-rods look fine.

 

Toe in would exacerbate outer edge wear not inner.

Center tire wear in the rear of XK's seem to be a result of suspension design more than anything else. I used to run various air pressures on XK's and it didn't really any difference with regards to accelerated wear in the center of the rears.

Filling street tires with nitrogen is a pure waste of money. Air is 78% nitrogen. The additonal 22% in a street car won't amount to a hill of beans. Plus you'd have to refill your tires with nitrogen every single time you add air to tires to keep the benefit. Rubber is pourous and you're going to have to add air about once a month anyway. Again what's good for the racetrack must be good for the street marketing. Nitrogen does have benefits; it keeps tire temps cooler under extreme conditions and has less pressure variance under extreme conditions. Neither which apply to normal street driving unless you regulary drive over 100 mph over long stretches of time.

 

There was a time I would have responded like you did. Today I know better!

 

Hey Matt,
I run my Michelin PS2's at 34 Rear and 32 Front. I'll check tomorrow to see what the wear pattern appears to be. I recently put Falkens' on the wife's Lexus SC430 replacing than the annoying and ridiculously expensive "Run Flats". I have been impressed with the Falkens, but really, it's so easy to improve upon the ride of the "Run Flats". Have you been happy with your overall ride compared to other tires? Thanks.

Just today I shipped my nephew back to Dallas after treating him to a graduation trip here in Florida. Next weekend he drives to Lubbock for........................TEXAS TECH ORIENTATION!!!
He's pretty excited about it.

Regards,
Brian

 

I like your son already. Give him the 'guns up' for me Brian.

All I have to compare the Falkens on a car to were the old Pirelli P-Zero's. BAsically, no loss in any performance areas, quieter - yes, longer tread life - yes. Rain performance is equal, if not just a bit better. Snow...well, hard to rate that area in TX.

Raheny, if you haven't read some of the techs older posts, mainly from brutal and jagtechohio, and this situation has been ongoing since I got the car 2 years ago. Inner front tire wear AND feathering. The feathering is what mainly concerned me because the inner wear being excessive is caused by the camber being just too out of spec...sagging springs, deflecting upper shock mounts etc under such a heavy engine. That, and I think it is meant to have some camber in to help cornering was part of the design.

Now, the feathering is occurring, in our best theories, as such. We get our alignments done with the car in the air, set it straight, then put it back on the ground. Camber comes in, weight transfers to the inside of the tires moreso. When driving, the weight of the car wants to pull the tires apart (to toe it out) and that is what naturally increases the chances of 'feathering' the inner edge. By toe-ing it in on the spec towards the red, you are attempting to straighten the wheel out under actual driving conditions...or at least close to straight as possible. I have just a little bit of outer edge feathering, but nothing like the inner edge after this modification. Perhaps this is a work in progress, setting my toe in and backing it out, so that it isn't too much to cause the outer edge feathering condition, and reduce the amount of inner edge abuse at the same time. I believe I have found more life in my tires by doing this, and aligning it frequently.

If you want my last two alignment specs in regards to toe, let me know, i'll email them to you. If you catch it early on, you can save 10-15k miles on those tires.

Wazari, that may be very well be why I haven't noticed any change to the center rear tire wear. Too bad too, because it would have been nice to change all 4 tires at once instead of doing rears more often. Thanks.

 

Move your seat back a couple of inches so your right foot is lighter on the go peddle!!

 

Thanks for the tip Green, will do.