So I've owned my 2004 Infiniti G35 for over a year and a half now. I am not the original owner. It has been lowered, although I'm not sure what process they took when doing so or what corrections they made to any of the suspension when they lowered it.

I've always had the problem of the tires wearing on the inside while the rest of the tire is generally pretty decent still, however in last 7 months I've had to replace the front tires 3 times. Spending over $600 on tires had me scratching my head. I took it into a shop and they informed me that the Lower Control Arms "gaskets" had failed and the control arms slipped and are no longer in alignment. (Here is a photo)


As you can see the rubber gasket sits where the control arm should be, however the arm itself has slipped. It is the exact same on both sides. WOULD this be causing the problem I am having? I've read people talking about "Cambers" as well... although I am unsure how to check that for front wheels, and also not sure if that is quite the problem... as this seems to be the most viable problem I can see.

Here is a photo of my tires as of now.. only 2 months after buying them and not putting many miles on them at all.



I am in the military and on my base they have a auto shop that you can take your car to and work with a mechanic to fix the problem yourself. So I am going to do it that route to save a lot of money, what other parts do I need to order or replace when I replace the lower control arms? Someone suggested that I replace the upper control arms as well because "when you replace the lowers the uppers tend to go out". Do I really need to replace both lowers and uppers?

I appreciate all the help! Sorry for the long post, just want to make sure i get everything taken care of that I need so that hopefully my tires will last longer than a month this time.

 

If you're going to dive into the suspension on the front, you'll need to realign everything. So you might as well get everything done that you can to save yourself some headaches in the long run. For example, think about replacing the following:

Comp rod bushings, LCA bushings, lower control arms, upper control arms (switch to adjustable), upper bushings, knuckle joints to start.

 

I'll repeat what deaf said and add to the list:

-Comp rod bushings (polyurethane)
-Inner and outer lower control arm bushings (polyurethane)
-steering knuckle ball joints
-all new shocks and shock mounts (assuming its not lowered on Coilovers - post a pic of your shocks as well as your wheel/fender gap so we can see how low it is)

You would also need SPC eccentric toe bolts for the rear spring buckets. You can do adjustable control arms in back (SPC or eibach) and adjustable upper control arms up front (SPC or Kinetix).

Most importantly after this is all done you will need an alignment and make sure they set your total toe to as close to zero as possible. It's the toe that's killing your tires.

 

Perfect advice ^ Regardless of how your G is lowered you're going to NEED adjustable a-arms up front so you won't continue eating tires. Your next challenge w/b finding anyone that knows how to align a modified suspension to get you back to OE specs...Gary

 

The toe eats the inside of the tires quickly, the camber eats the insides over time. He has a toe issue BEFORE he has a camber issue (buy toe bolts TODAY if you can't buy them all).

 

Upgraded all my bushings to poly, front and rear spc camber kits, and a rear spc toe bolt and my car hasn't sat this flat ever. I suggest you do the similar...

 

Great, thank you for the great information. So I do have a couple questions now that I know my car is really messed up.

I'll upload a photo of my wheel well tomorrow, as it is dark right now and wouldnt really be able to see it anyway. My question is... the toe belt, is that something that a shop would need to replace or is it something i can easily do by myself at the on-base auto body shop? Also - is the repair complicated?

Second question would be: I'm not entirely sure what an "adjustable a-arm" is used to replace.

Obviously an alignment would need to be done at a shop. I am on a military budget so all these repairs will need to be done over time. What would you suggest I replace first and foremost to get the wear to slow down on the inside of the front tires? If I do nothing else immediately, would you suggest to change the "toe belt" before the lower control arms?

Thank you all for the help, I've wrote down everything you've suggested to replace.

 

I'm no super mechanic by no means, but it was a lot of work for me. Where the toe bolt sits now must be cut and grinded out to allow for adjustment. You can search on here for DIY. Whoever did it did a great tutorial on it. Good luck.

 

You need to take replace the lower control arm bushings, the compression rod bushings and you need to install toe SPC eccentric toe bolts in the back immediately. Then have an alignment done immediately.

There are writups for all of these procedures and parts are fairly cheap. The adjustable arms are a but more expensive and the can come later. Camber doesn't accelerate tire wear. Getting new bushings and getting your toe under control will stop the excessive wear.

You can do the toe bolts if you have a drill and a sideways cutting carbide drill bit. The bushings you can install (they're 3 piece and you can push them in by hand) but you'll need a shop press to remove the old ones. If you don't have a press you can take the arms off and take them to any shop and they'll charge you $20-50 to press them all out.

 

Ok, I've looked up the parts and check out a few write ups on the parts you suggested.

What is the difference between the "Lower Control Arm" and the "Compression Rod". I looked up both on google and they have photos of the same piece of equipment. Im just curious because I want to make sure I know what the difference is between the lower control arm bushing and the compression rod bushing. Im guessing in this image the compression rods are the ones in the middle and the control arms are the ones on the outsides?


Also, most of the tutorials I've found are on a 350Z. Is it similar for the G35?

Here are the parts I have found.

Front Lower Control Arm Bushings:

Front Compression Rod Bushings:

Toe Bolt:
https://conceptzperformance.com/Cart...on.php?II=4291


Thank you again for all the help!!

Also, would you recommend just replacing the entire arms on both - or can I get away with just replacing bushings? I've heard from several sources that since they are the stock control arms and compression rods that I cant just replace the bushings. However I don't know how accurate that is. The car has 159k miles on it - but im trying to keep it in the best shape possible.

 

A lot of this depends on; how much you are lowered, how bad is the alignment out of spec, how much tire wear are you willing to put up with?

I have lowered my sedan 1" and after the alignment, toe was perfect and camber was +1.2 degrees. I am able to rotate my tires (all same size) and that helps, but I get about 22-25K out of a set before the insides are too far gone. If your toe is out (especially in the back) it will wear tires in DAYS not weeks or months.

 

Also, in addition to my last reply, as requested previously here are the photos of my car and how lowered it is - in addition to a shot of my shocks (as best I could).




Sorry for the blurriness:

 

Those are "coil over" shocks with adjustable ride height. If you don't want to spend money now, just raise the car up to stock height.

 

Wow, are you serious!? I had no idea I could do that with these shocks. If I raise it, soon I'll still need to replace the bushings on the control arms and such, but do you think that would help the toe bolts and slow the tire wear? (If the rear toe bolts are what is causing my FRONT tire wear.) Would I be able to adjust it myself, and if so, how would I be able to know when I've reached stock height on the shocks? Might be dumb questions but I've never done that before with shocks lol.

Also, would I require an alignment after I raise it? (The shop I took it to said they can't do an alignment because the front lower control arms have slipped from the bushings.) Wouldn't raising the car without an alignment cause toe issues as well?

Thank you, seriously, if this works it could save me a lot of wear on the tires and allow me to save for the control arms and compression rods or bushings.

 

The LCAs are the two in the middle and the comp rods are on the outsides. You would benefit from replacing the whole arm of the comp rods cuz you'll get new ball joints. But you'll still wanna go with poly bushings in the new rods. The LCAs you can just replace the bushings cuz there are no moving parts. Any time you mess with the height yer gonna want to align it. I wouldn't raise it til you get the new parts on.