I have a 04 Coupe with 11,500 miles and I am on my 2nd set of Goodyear RSas (17inch rims). The dealership replaced my first set of tires because the middle treads on the rear were down to 2/32 after 7,500 miles while the tires had proper pressures measured with a digital gauge. I am on my second set and after 4,000 miles the middle treads on the rears are down to 4/32 which means they will be shot by 7,000-7500 miles. I kept these tires underinflated to 26 lbs and did not help. There have been numerous threads about this issue on different websites and the service manager admits that all the Coupes do wear on the rear middle treads but the RSAs are the worst for this condition. I filed a claim with Infiniti Consumer Affairs and was planning on getting the Avon 550s. Another member has them and has claimed that after 4,000 miles they are much better than his Pilots but still have some more wear on the middle treads than the outer. I use a tire wear gauge to check my tires regularly. This is not acceptable and I'm sure if you guys were to check your rears, (U must get down on your knees and visually check or use a guage) you will abe surprised if you have any significant miles on your car. Infiniti should be doing something about this........however......they are not.

 

this often happens when there is too much air in the tires...check that.

 

The extreme inside edges of my rears wear faster, but I purposely set my rear camber at -1.4. Before the drop and new tires/wheels, my rear Pilots wore pretty evenly.

 

As I mentioned on my intial post, I kept the tires underinflated with the new replacement rear tires and the middle treads still showed excessive wear. Please note that this issue is exaggerated with anyone who has the Goodyear RSAs on the 17s with the base model. However it still occurs (but not as extreme) with the 18s with the Pilots and factory wheels. All those who upgraded your wheels might not see this happening. This IS NOT an alignment issue! Usually, only overinflation or rims that are too narrow for the tire can cause this problem. Since my tires were underinflated and the condition persisted, that rules out overinflation. This issue, by the way, does not occur with the sedans which of course have the same size rim and tire all around. It is only an issue with factory rims with the 17s and 18s and is most obvious with the Goodyear RSAs. I am not aware if it occurs with the 19s.
Many owners are not even aware that they have a problem until the mechanic points it out on the lift. The reason for this is because the rear tires look fine when just standing behind the car and looking down because the outside treads are not affected and look like new. It is only when you bend down and look directly at the middle treads that you will notice the problem. A tire wear gauge will tell all.

 

How hard do you accelerate?

 

i had the same problem too. i ended up just underinflating my rear tires by just a little bit after i replaced the rears at about 15k miles. it appeared to do the trick and allowed for even wear.

 

I had the exact same problem(Oem 17 with RS-A)... mine lasted 11,500 and I replaced it with Pilot A/S....

The pilot a/s have about 7K and still looks new...

The front is about 6/32 at 18,000 miles with even wear.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot think of any other reason except for overinflation. You did say that you underinflated your tires to 26psi. That seems a little too low.

The only other thing that I can think of is this. When I get an oil change at the Infiniti dealership I specifically ask for them not to mess with the tire pressures and not to give me a car wash. However, every time they inflate them to 33psi and they give me a car wash, which is very annoying.

I end up deflating the rears to ~29psi and deflating the fronts to ~31psi. It seems that my car is "dialed-in" at these pressures with these particular Enkei rims.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you may need to check your pressures everytime you go to the dealership, most likely they pump up your tires up to spec after each service.

 

Thanks for all the feedback. First of all, I am a very conservative driver, mostly city driving with almost no hard acceleration. Secondly, I don't go to the dealer more than once a year for an oil change or minor issues. I always check my air pressures with a digital gauge and keep them under recommended pressure. SILVER11 mentioned that he replaced his RSAs at 11,500 miles. If I decided to disregard the wear bars when the middle treads had a little over 2/32 left........I could have pushed a few thousand miles more but would not feel comfortable getting to close to bare tread in the middles. Also guys, please understand this. Silver11 also mentioned he replaced his RSAs with Pilots. As I mentioned in an earlier post for this subject........the Pilots will not wear as extremely in the middles as the Goodyears and they will give you more mileage out of them before the centers are shot. However, when they go.....you will still notice that the middle treads are more worn than the outer. Any tire put on the standard rims will eventually produce the same symptom. It's just a matter of whether the owner is aware of this issue or not.