Hi, I have a 2007 G35 with the sport package. So the front tires and rear tires are different sizes, and no rotation can be done. We bought the car with 35K miles, with brand new tires, and now 15K miles later the front tires are severely cupped with lot's of road noise and jumpy handling over bumps. There is plenty of tread left on both front and rear, just the cupping is the problem.

We had the alignment done when we bought the car, and had it checked again after the cupping was noticed, and it is still "aligned".

Doing some google search, there seems to be a few articles that say this is just going to happen again, because of how the car was designed...

What are my options? Is is possible to get my rear wheels replaced/swapped with someone to get the same size as the front so they can be rotated to get more life out of them?

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

Front and rear wheels themselves are different widths so that is not a good idea. Another option is take the tires off the wheels and have the cupped inside edge mounted so it is the outside edge. Another possibility is you have some bushing that are worn out causing the cupping mine never cupped they just had greater inside tread wear.

if you need to rotate in the worst way buy a square wheel set up (all the same width) and buy some same sized non directional tires and rotate away.

 

i had the same issues and dealer told me samething (car was designed like that). I lowered the car (eibach springs) and front and rear camber and that seem to fix most of the problem, i still have front trie cupping but not as bad as before

 

Yeah, I was thinking of getting different wheel widths for the rears.. maybe wondering if it is even a potential to swap the rear wheels with someone else who has the same size as the front. As long as the wheel design matches of course!

It's definitely cupping as opposed to regular wear... the car is really loud now driving around at lower speeds.

I'll have the bearings checked.

 

Tire brand has a lot to do with cupping as well. If you're running a tire like the Falken 452 that has individual blocks on the outsides of the treads, it will cup/feather really badly when the alignment is slightly out of spec and sometimes when it's in spec due to the aggressive alignment settings of the G. Moving to a tire like the Hankook V12 that has grooves around the edges instead of blocks will alleviate your issue, but inner tire wear will still be present.

HTH

 

Sounds like lack of rotation and alignment combination causing the issue.

 

Not sure how it could be alignment, as the alignment was good with the new tires, and still good after the problem occurred.

As far as lack of rotation, since I have the larger back tires, rotation can only be done from side to side, if the tires/tread pattern allow it.

 

I'm having a similar issue with my car

2003 G35 Sedan - lowered about 1.75-2"

I never had issues with tire cupping before but suddenly am having terrible cupping issues. Previously I had the Toyo T1R. Currently using the Hankook Ventus V12 which are cheap but nowhere near as good as the Toyo, imo.

New lower control arm bushings. Just replaced the front wheel bearings.

I have lots of miles on my car and never had this problem until recently. How can this possibly be NOW attributed to bad geometry when it wasn't a problem before?

 

I had the same issue when I bought my car. To pass safety my car needed two new front tires and they put on nankang ultra sport ns II. After about 5K there was terrible road noise and they said it was alignment related and the tires were feathered and cupping. I ended buying the SPC camber kits for the front and back and havent had the same problem ever since and also bought Bridgestone Potenzas for the front. The camber kit is definitely worth it and will save you money on tires in the long run than if you didnt have a camber kit.

 

Well, I ended up getting 4 new Kumho platinum tires. They did an alignment and said it was off a bit, but I asked if that would have caused the cupping, he didn't think so.

The tires are rated for 60K miles, he said that wouldn't apply to me since they couldn't be rotated in a normal way ( since I have larger rear tires ), but I should be able to get 30K miles out of them. I will be doing side to side rotations every 5K miles, though he didn't sound like that would do too much.

He also said the normal wear/replacement schedule is like this:

Buy 4 tires
Buy 2 rear
Buy 4 Tires
Buy 2 rear

So the front tires should be lasting twice as long as the rear.

If these ones get messed up, I'll look into making some modifications!

 

I'm getting a SPC front camber kit. I talked to a few knowledgeable people who track their cars frequently. They tell me that our cars suck at holding an alignment. Although I never had a problem til recent, I'm inclined to agree. I will try to get the toe closer to 0 and will have the SPC to nullify some excess camber