Uneven trye wear and suspension issues

[scarecrow]

http://www.ftoaustralia.com/modules.php ... pic&t=4215
Alrighty, just took a look at my tyres and i'm quite shocked. Bought the car a couple of months ago from Adriano and the tyres were like new.

Back ones still have probably 90-95% tread left on them now.
Front passenger has roughly 10-20% and front driver has probably 30-40% tread left.

What the hell?

Before this I was getting accused of hooning whenever someone looks at my tyres, they always look like someones recently been doing circle work with them. I've never spun my poor FTO's tyres on purpose, it's too much of a wanky thing to do in a FWD. The tyres will chirp at the drop of a hat though, sets of light at anything but an almost stalling take off and even cornering with mild acceleration will make the car sort of "skip". Never brake hard either, only had to once and I didn't even lock the wheels.

Oh and under hard acceleration the car pulls to the left usually. Also if I sit between 70-80 theres a high pitched whine from what seems to be the front wheels.

Only thing that's been changed is a raise in suspension, 1cm on one side, 2 on the other (it was uneven before), and I was told I wouldn't need alignment afterwards because it was only put up a little bit.

Which brings me to my squeky front suspension and wierd noises with 4 passengers.

Whenever the front suspension compresses going over a bump it "squelches". I've been told it's normal for tein coilovers, but it doesn't sound normal at all.

The rear suspension are Konig or something. Whenever i've got passengers in the rear if I go over a bump or rough patch of road theres this horrible scraping sound. Only thing I can think of is the rear tyres hitting the upper guard, but it seems unlikely.

Ok so now the questions.

I'm after new front tyres, and I want them slightly higher profile. Currently the tyres are as follows:
Front
Avon ZZ1
215/40ZR17 83W

Rear
Silverstone FTZ Sport
235/40ZR17 90W

I have no idea what those numbers mean.

Could someone recommend a decent set of new front tyres?
Is the front suspension noise normal?
What the hell is happening in the rear when passengers are in?
Where's a good place to get some suspension bits (ie. rear strut bar, possibly new ARB bushes or droplinks)?
Where's a good place to get the wheels aligned and the suspension setup (camber, toe in, damper, all that sort of stuff)?

Thanks a bundle,
Joel.

[Teania]

Good place for tyres -
Beaurepaires Parramatta Parramatta Cnr O'Connell & Aird Sts 2150 (02) 9635 7455
- speak to Steve Burn. You want to speak to Steve not his offsider. I've dealt with him for the past 6 years, he's not the cheapest, but I've always found him to be honest - and he;s looked after a few FTO;s now. He can look at your alignment and stuff, camber, caster etc.

For suspension - Adrian Moore Suspension
Unit 2/ 39 Buffalo Rd Gladesville 2111 (02) 9808 3838

I haven't been to him, but a friend of mine who races swears by him. Not the flashest set up in the world apparently, but good advice and he knows his stuff

Hope this helps

Cheers
Tanya

[G_A_V]

Yeah check your alignment I had the same problem, and my alignment was slightly out, also go for a harder tyre.
and whats wrong with spinning the wheels in a fwd ? I have put a lot of rwd to shame

[scarecrow]

Thanks a bunch Tanya, i'll head down to Beaurepaires in a couple of days and speak to Steve. I'll get him to recommend me a set and give me a qoute on balancing, alignment and stuff.

I can't believe they've worn so fast. Especially the passenger side. I can't have had the car for more then 3 months, tyres really did look new when I brought them.

I've heard good things about Pirelli P-Zero's, but that's about all. Also heard extremely bad things about Silverstone (I think it was smorison that wrote up an article) but personally I havn't had a problem with my rears.

[Bennoz]

Hey Scarecrow, it worries me a bit that you had to raise it because it was uneven... . Has the car ever be pranged?? If so, was it hit hard enough to require the chassis to be re-jiged?? (ie pulled square) as that can cause all manner of weird wear even with the wheels perfectly aligned.

Squelching in the front is generally droplinks or tower mounts at the top (unlikely cause you got Teins) Droplinks are easy replaced & about $100 for a set. If you've got a GPX, then rear droplinks may also be the cause of your rear noise. What type of wheels are on it? If you got a bad offset on the rears then under load they could be bagging out onto the inner arch.

How are the tyres wearing? If worn on the outside edges, could be under inflation. If worn thru the centre, then over inflation. If worn on the inside edge, to much negative camber. Personally, im a Yokohama man - swear by them. Falken make reasonbly priced ones as well. As for Pirelli P Zero - they are one of the best on the market, you'll find them on a Ferrari, but you have to pay with a limb to get 'em.

Although its import, you don't have to go to a FTO specialist to get this stuff done (well you would for reco-ing your teins.) My advice, go down to your local suspension shop (Pedders or similar) and get 'em to do a full job on it. Sway bar bushes, castor bushes, lower control arm bushes & droplinks. Then get them to do a full alignment - check for square, reasonable level of neg camber (1-1.5 degrees) same with castor & get around a half a degree of toe in - that will ease any direction pulling you get under both acceleration and braking.

If you wanna find bushes yourself, Whiteline (www.whiteline.com) have a range on the you-beut polyurethane bushes (blue or red ones) that will fit any application. Just need to specify sizes.

Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Ben.

[afterburner]

Those are some pretty wide (235) rear tyres. Is there any reason you have different widths front to back?

[scarecrow]

As far as I know there's been no major damage, although from what I can tell the front bar has been resprayed (possibly when the lip was added) and the rear bar has also been repsprayed. It was out by a centimetre which I assume occured when he had the teins installed. Only an idiot would drop the car so low, so most likely that same idiot didn't do it level. Front passenger about 8cm off the ground, front driver 7cm off the ground.

Dropping it in for a suspension tuneup's a good idea. And I suspected (from what i've read) that it was either the bushes or droplinks. Each tyre is worn evenly across the width of the tread, but unevenly when compared to each other.

I just guessed 215 and 235 related to the profile of the tyres cause thats the only thing I could tell were different. Would this be width in cm's?

Bah, I gotta leave, thanks for the replies so far, i'll get back to this tonight.

[afterburner]

Its the width in mm. If it were the width in cm, your tyres would be over 2 metres wide

Say your tyres are 215/45 R17:

The 215 is the overall width of the tyre in mm
The 45 is the profile - it is a percentage of the width. In this case, the tyre is 45% as tall as it is wide.
The R17 is the diameter in inches of your rims.

Usually in a FWD car, the tyres are the same width all round. In extreme cases you may see slightly wider tyres on the front. Normally only RWD cars have wider tyres on the rear...

[Bennoz]

Also a good idea to keep them all the same, so when your fronts start to wear - you can rotate them to the back. Gives you twice the life out of one set of tyres.

[scarecrow]

Just a quick update, softened my suspension damper up and the squelching noise disappeared, plus my passengers stopped complaining about a sore ass. I prefer it hard, but roads around here are in pretty sh*t condition so I'll leave it like this.

Dropped into Beaurepairs, didn't ask for Steve though. Got served by this guy Martin, awesome fella, didn't give me sh*t about having a wing or a massive cannon exhaust attached to my p plates He's a bit worried about getting the car up to do a wheel alignment because of the low lip, but we'll see if it works out.

Getting the fronts replaced with 235/40's like the rears. He's suppliers are closed on the weekends so he's ringing me Monday morning with a price. Still not sure what brand I'm after, want to pay roughly 200per tyre.

He said they'd do the alignment, and then toe-in, camber, caster ecetera.

As soon as he saw the car he asked about the club, told him I was referred by our lovely Tanya. Said they've done a few, including hers and some skinny white guy's.

Can't wait for new tyres, gonna be great, the front passenger side now looks like a racing slick

[afterburner]

Hmm 235s on the front - that's pretty wide for an FTO. Be prepared for a bit of scrapage when you turn corners. I have 215s and I get some minor scrapage....

On the other hand it should improve traction.

[Jono]

leave the 235 on the rears, i have the same.

235 leaves u with a safe rear. lol

[scarecrow]

Hmm 235s on the front - that's pretty wide for an FTO. Be prepared for a bit of scrapage when you turn corners. I have 215s and I get some minor scrapage....
On the other hand it should improve traction.

Hmm, i'll see how it turns out. The rims are 235 wide, but the front tyres taper in sort of to 215mm. Don't have scrapes on the front at all, but the rears are scraping on something when I have passengers in the back and go over bumps. I'm hoping that 2cm's isn't going to make much of a difference, but then again i'm also moving to a higher profile (well from 215/40 to 235/40) so I can get some more ground clearance.

[scarecrow]

Alright, just got off the phone to Steve. Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3's for ~$650 including balance, aligment and camber, caster, toe in adjustment. Not bad considering they're performance tyres which retail at 340 per corner. Having a think about it. A little steep considering I can get Nakang NS1's from Tempe at 170 each.

[EURO]

is that $650 for 2 or 4?

I bought them about 10 months ago, for $235 a tyre.... (4 all together) plus the alignement etc. I should add Im 90% sure mine were 215/45 17



Eagle f1 GSD3 from beaurepairs

[dstocks]

Thought I might tack onto this thread too as I have some of the same issues.

I have bilstein inserts on the front and bilsteins on the back (not inserts). These have done < 5000km. I have replaced the front strutt tops, droplinks all round, anti roll bar bushes all round and have just spent $1100 on a steering rack rebuild at Pedders which I was told I needed. When they did this they also replaced another bush in the front (not sure what it was. At this stage I dont know what else to replace and the noises are driving me nuts.

All noises occur at less than 80kms and tend to be worst on rough bitumen roads (I guess this is obvious).

I get the same squeak as mentioned above. This occurs sometimes when I brake and occasionally when I change down a gear or turn the steering wheel at low speeds.

the other noises sound like metal on metal. One is a high pitched noise that seems to originalt on the LHS Front and the the other is a more deep pitched rattle (again in the front).

Are these noises natural based on the stiffer bilsteins I am running or is there something else I can try (or should I just spend my money on better soundproofing?).

Any suggestions appreciated

[Bennoz]

I dont spose pedders pulled your front lower control arms out & replaced those bushes as well?.... just a thought.
Another great source of rattle under there is also all the plastic under gaurd crap. Check under your drivers side wheel arch & jiggle both the arch liner & the bit that joins it (covers the side of the engine) the plastic lugs that hold that crap together often go or loosen right up

[dstocks]

Yep, they did replace the control arm bushes (theyre the ones I couldnt remember the name of).

All plastic is fairly solid (and have been taken off and replaced several times without making a difference) and the noises dont really sound like plastic noises.

[scarecrow]

is that $650 for 2 or 4?
I bought them about 10 months ago, for $235 a tyre.... (4 all together) plus the alignement etc. I should add Im 90% sure mine were 215/45 17
Eagle f1 GSD3 from beaurepairs

It's for 2. Theres a 50USD difference between the 215/45's and the 235/40's so the price they've given me sounds about right. And the $650 is inclusive of the 65 dollar alignment and suspension adjustment. I'd go for 215's if the back's were that aswell, but I'd really like to be able to rotate them.