I have an OEM 18" S wheels on my X right now that are professionally powder coated graphite. I love the wheels but with the offset on my X I am tearing through tires. I have only 23k on my fronts and the belts are about to come through. Both the dealer and Discount Tire tell me its the offset on the OEM wheels that is the cause so as much as I don't want to get wheels, I also don't want to buy 2 sets of tires annually either.

I am looking at the TSW Nurburgring in Matte Black or possibly the TSW Snetterton. Anyone have either of these on their car and if so, any pics? My car is white and since I have graphite wheels currently I like the idea of the contrast.

Thanks

 

offset is just that - a measurement of spacing from the hub. It has nothing do with tire wear. whoever told you this is confused. If you're lowered, and your camber is off, THAT will cause your tires to wear sooner.

 

^^ That's not ENTIRELY true. The offset can definitely cause tire wear if it is causing the wheel to scrub against the body/suspension/etc. while turning and/or under compression (especially on the front), whereas the wheel otherwise does not make contact when just rolling straight and uncompressed. I would think the OP would hear and/or feel the contact, but maybe it's subtle.


To the OP: Have you looked in all the pic threads? There's a buzillion pics of all kinds of wheel setups; seems like there's gotta be some there.

 

while that may be the case if someone is running extreme offsets, the OP is running stock S wheels, from the same generation / chassis. The suspension geometry is only slightly different on the X (with the ride height actually being higher, so affording more clearance.)

so, just to clarify my point - - there's no way that the offset on stock S wheels are causing accelerated tire wear on an x, beyond how they would wear on the S car, especially "down to the bands" at 2x,xxx miles. Methinks it's an alignment issue.

 

agreed

 

The alignment was off a bit, but the spec sheet from Infiniti shows it was only the right rear tire which was -.9 degree Camber and .31 degree toe which should not have impacted the front tires to that degree or at least I wouldn't think so.

According to the spec sheet the front left is -.7 camber, 3.7 caster and .02 toe and the front right is -.8 camber, 3.7 caster and .02 toe.

 

Any alignment tech will tell you that your alignment starts with the rear, and then moves forward. If you ever have anything upset the rear alignment, the WHOLE alignment needs to be re-established. If you have something upset the front, often they can simply pull it back into spec w/o re-doing the whole car.

 

Well they performed a 4 wheel alignment but it really didn't change the front numbers to any degree since they were still within spec. And I don't recall my previous tires wearing this badly so why these are I am not sure.

 

Well, you just kinda proved my point there. SInce your one rear was out, they had to redo all 4 corners again. The fact that the only number that changed "to any degree" was for the rear corner that was originally out, is precisely to be expected! . . . OF COURSE the other 3 numbers would all be in spec since they JUST redid them all. Wouldn't you expext all four to be in spec after a 4-wheel alignment?

 

Just a quick question, What do you guys that have lowered your car think the max drop you can do without a camber kit is?

 

You can go as low as you want as long as your toe is good and you don't mind camber.

 

Maybe I am missing something here or just don't entirely understand. I have the before and after readings and just the passenger rear was out of spec. Although they did perform an all wheel alignment the other 3 tire readings were just about the same as the before reading. So my guess would be that even though just the one tire was out of alignment it should not have caused the excessive wear on the inner front tires. Is that correct? This is my first time having to deal with an alignment issue so I am trying to fully understand how the one tire being out would cause such a wear issue on the fronts when they were in spec before and after the alignment.

 

When a rear wheel is out of alignment, the fronts will definitely be affected. Overall, the alignment of the car acts as a whole; you can't just assume since the fronts were still in spec that they kept the tires properly oriented when driving down the road and that only the rear would be affected. If a rear was out, then the overall balance was definitely affected and the result could very well be exactly what you've seen.

Of course I can't say it's 100% certain that the alignment was what caused your particular wear issue, but in the vast majority of cars with similar circumstances, irregular tire wear would be attributable to the alignment. Given that, it seems entirely more likely that bad alignment was what was causing yours as well; certainly it is FAR MORE plausible than the wheel offsets theory (of stock wheels no less!). Rather than seeking the implausible for an explanation to your tread wear issues, I'd definitely start with what you already know 100% for sure, that your alignment was out! Why not just go with that?

 

You have the S wheels, does that mean you have the summer tires on there as well? If so, 23k is pretty good.

As have been said, this minor change in offsets will not affect tire wear that much at all.

0.3 toe will, not only to that corner, but to how the whole car behaves. I'm curious how they got the other corners get the same exact #'s even after fixing alignment on that offending corner?

Another thing you can try is going to a different alignment shop. All machines these days are practically equal in terms of capabilities, but not all alignment techs are the same. I've even experienced a perfectly good shop that i frequent once fail to re-tighten the rear toe bolts. Only took a couple of miles to know something was wrong. So, although i drove out with perfectly good sheet #'s, going back in, the rears were completely out of whack.

 

The tire are not summer tires, they are Yokohama YK580 which are 65,000 mile tread wear if rotated. The Infiniti dealer performed the 4 wheel alignment so I hope it was done correctly. I could have saved $50 and had it done elsewhere but wanted it done right.

Part of my position is I have to get 2 fronts ASAP. I can drop $450 on 2 new ones and hope the alignment did fix the bulk of the problem, but Discount Tire is giving me a $250 credit on the tires, discounting the wheel package another $100 and hopefully I can sell my OEM wheels for around $800. So if the alignment isn't causing the problem I got out of my current setup somewhat inexpensive. I don't want new wheels but don't want this to happen again either. Again even the dealer is telling me that is my problem. And if I didn't mention my rears are wearing heavily in the middle of the tread. I will try to stop by the dealership again today and go over the before and after spec sheet and get a better understanding.