Excessive rear tyre wear on E46 M3

[Martin W]

I have managed to eat my way through 5 mill of tread on the rears of my E46 M3 in 1 month (only about 2,000 miles covered principally on motorways). The car had both RTAB's replaced and the geometry done (coils given a clean bill of health) prior to installing the brand new Michelin PS2's. Sometimes I'll drive enthusistically but have not wheel spun or hung the rear end out at all; as I said, most of the driving is regular motorway speeds.

Anyone heard of this happening before and a possible remedy?

[Chessers]

That definitely isn't correct, I would take it to someone like Elite and get them to take a look at the alignment or something.

I drive mine pretty spiritedly on PS2's and they last a lot longer than that!

[rev-erend]

Someone recently had the same issue..

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...

Edited by rev-erend on Wednesday 25th February 11:17

[E30M3SE]

Is the tyre wear even across the tyres tread?

BTW, I would not take a car to Elitefor alignment.

[Martin W]

rev-erend said:

Someone recently had the same issue..

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...

Edited by rev-erend on Wednesday 25th February 11:17

Yes, I saw that thread before. Unfortunately no resolution was mentioned so decided to 'bump' the issue.

[Martin W]

E30M3SE said:

Is the tyre wear even across the tyres tread?

BTW, I would not take a car to Elitefor alignment.

The pattern of tyre wear is perfect, it's just happening too quickly!

The alignment/geometry is spot on - even took it back to have it double checked before posting here.

[Toilet Duck]

E30M3SE said:

BTW, I would not take a car to Elite for alignment.

Can I ask why? I thought they had state of the art laser alignment, I know the printouts show very exact measurements. Be interested to know your experience of them before I take my M3 to them in the near future as planned. Cheers.

[deano23]

If its both rears not sure, if its only one rear then it may possibly be your differential.

And that's from personal experience!

[rev-erend]

Could it be down to traction control .. is it fitted, turned on / off.. what settings.. sure it's working ?

[E30M3SE]

Toilet Duck said:

E30M3SE said:

BTW, I would not take a car to Elite for alignment.

Can I ask why? I thought they had state of the art laser alignment, I know the printouts show very exact measurements. Be interested to know your experience of them before I take my M3 to them in the near future as planned. Cheers.

Lets just say that past, 10 years ago, bad experience would prevent me from going there again.

ETA, it involved a seized bolt, an acetylene torch which lead to a melted driveshaft boot and subsequent claims that the boot was like that before they worked on the car.

It matters not what equipment they have if the the person operating doesn't know what they are doing it is all academic.

Try Centre Gravity

Edited by E30M3SE on Wednesday 25th February 12:26

Link fixed.

Edited by E30M3SE on Wednesday 25th February 12:28

[rev-erend]

E30M3SE said:

Toilet Duck said:

E30M3SE said:

BTW, I would not take a car to Elite for alignment.

Can I ask why? I thought they had state of the art laser alignment, I know the printouts show very exact measurements. Be interested to know your experience of them before I take my M3 to them in the near future as planned. Cheers.

Lets just say that past, 10 years ago, bad experience would prevent me from going there again.

It matters not what equipment they have if the the person operating doesn't know what they are doing it is all academic.

Try Centre Gravity

http://www.centergravity.co.uk/

[mat205125]

Toilet Duck said:

.... very exact measurements.

Not a specific comment relating to Elite, but a general 6-Sigma observation:

Never confuse measurement decimal places wit accuracy. I can use a stopwatch to time something, press the stop button, and give you a number showing thousanths of a second. In actual fact, human reactions rarely better 10ths of a second .... A laser alignment machine may give 3 decimal places of a degree "accuracy", however without calibration and a highly skilled operator, that magnification of measurement might be complete bks anyway.

[Martin W]

deano23 said:

If its both rears not sure, if its only one rear then it may possibly be your differential.

And that's from personal experience!

Both wearing at the same extortionate rate!

[Martin W]

rev-erend said:

Could it be down to traction control .. is it fitted, turned on / off.. what settings.. sure it's working ?

DSC on and working but only found that when a fox run out in front of the car in the rain a couple of nights back (fox avoided in case anyone cares).

SMG box set to 1 on auto and 3 on seq.

Could the tyre company have got it wrong - a softer compound batch of tyres perhaps?

[rev-erend]

Martin W said:

rev-erend said:

Could it be down to traction control .. is it fitted, turned on / off.. what settings.. sure it's working ?

DSC on and working but only found that when a fox run out in front of the car in the rain a couple of nights back (fox avoided in case anyone cares).

SMG box set to 1 on auto and 3 on seq.

Could the tyre company have got it wrong - a softer compound batch of tyres perhaps?

Surely a fox running out is going to trigger the ABS..

unless you floored is and the TC was woring overtime trying to stop you exterminating the little critter

Most xs wear is caused by pressures being too low.

Check with another guage against the book settings which I would guess as 28 psi

Edited by rev-erend on Wednesday 25th February 13:52

[Martin W]

rev-erend said:

Martin W said:

rev-erend said:

Could it be down to traction control .. is it fitted, turned on / off.. what settings.. sure it's working ?

DSC on and working but only found that when a fox run out in front of the car in the rain a couple of nights back (fox avoided in case anyone cares).

SMG box set to 1 on auto and 3 on seq.

Could the tyre company have got it wrong - a softer compound batch of tyres perhaps?

Surely a fox running out is going to trigger the ABS..

unless you floored is and the TC was woring overtime trying to stop you exterminating the little critter

Most xs wear is caused by pressures being too low.

Check with another guage against the book settings which I would guess as 28 psi

Edited by rev-erend on Wednesday 25th February 13:52

The damn thing jumped out on me as I was just about to exit a roundabout - had to turn sharply back onto the roundabout to avoid it. It was wet, back twitched, yellow light flased etc.

Tyre pressures set mid-way between the 2+luggage and 4+luggage settings.

On Saturday, the car is going back to the place where the tyres were bought and the alignment/geometry was done. I should have just about enough tread left to make it!

[neiljohnson]

Had a similar experiance with some ps2's on my focus they wore out within a 3-4k! I replaced them (with ps2's) but sent the old tyres back to michilen (which you can do through any of their dealers).

I didnt expect to hear anything back from them but about 3 weeks later i got a letter explaining that there was a fault with the tyres and if i went to my supplier they would give me my money back!

[kds keltec]

E30M3SE said:

Toilet Duck said:

E30M3SE said:

BTW, I would not take a car to Elite for alignment.

Can I ask why? I thought they had state of the art laser alignment, I know the printouts show very exact measurements. Be interested to know your experience of them before I take my M3 to them in the near future as planned. Cheers.

Lets just say that past, 10 years ago, bad experience would prevent me from going there again.

ETA, it involved a seized bolt, an acetylene torch which lead to a melted driveshaft boot and subsequent claims that the boot was like that before they worked on the car.

It matters not what equipment they have if the the person operating doesn't know what they are doing it is all academic.

Try Centre Gravity

Edited by E30M3SE on Wednesday 25th February 12:26

Link fixed.

Edited by E30M3SE on Wednesday 25th February 12:28

Did i meet you a few years ago as i remember a conversation that went exactly the same about elite even thou i suggested to go there for your alignment ! You have a nice boxter s and elite problem was with a tricked up subaru ?????

if it was not you then that is even worse for elite !!!


On the subject of elite and alignment to shed some light if of topic a bit !!

Many years ago i was using at the time a sun computer alignment machine as used by factory rally teams , had a customer who got me to regular set up his and a few of his friends cars for track days then back to standard!
This friend then starting working on the desk for elite !
Once my sun alignment machine died and could not be repaired i started using elite for my alignment of my own and customers cars!

Now being as my friend worked there and realised if i said the car fills worse after they had done the alignment , then some thing was wrong !

I found that when i took the car back the next day and asked if i could watch and be with the operator this time!
The strange thing is it was miles out even thou it was same operator same machine one day later ! And the print outs were completely different !!
So it was adjusted correctly then moved to a different bay (as they have 4 bays for alignment) and checked with a slightly older same make machine and same operator it was only just in tolerance! but in tolerance is ok for standard cars !

Since a have been allowed to watch , drive the car on the ramp and adjust my own car with the operator my cars have been spot on !!!

I do know that some of the guys in the fitting bays are much better than others and its a bit of luck of the draw sometimes and has the machine been calibrated recently !

But most of the feed back is they are happy with elite and the alignment

edit to say friend has left elite now and have not used them for over a year so going on past experiance not of late !

Edited by kds keltec on Wednesday 25th February 21:32

[E30M3SE]

@kds kaltec, wasn't me.