front tire wear

[VAVX]

good morning gang, i was hoping for some help with a quick question/poll...

i have a '00 vx, and one week from my 30k service, i notice severe wear on inner front tires, with a good amount of thread exposed on front right. i keep my tire pressure where it needs to be, and haven't done any off roading since feb., and most of my miles are hwy/commuter, except for winter when i head for the mountains. even had alignment checked, tires rot. and bal. right after that in march.

anyone else seeing this? ... coincidentally, the mechanic i had to go to (dealer didn't have tires in stock) told me there was another '00 in today with exact same issue... which got my mind racing a little.

otherwise enjoying my vx fully, and will be back in the mountains of wv next month regardless.

[Cptnmorgan]

I'm having a similar issue, but my wear is on the outside of the tire. I think mine is due to upsizing the tires to 265/75/16's

[VAVX]

yeah, this has made me wonder about changing the size. just got back from the shop and the mechanic said that the alignment was off, but nowhere near what he expected to see based on the tire damage.

he suggested i take it to the dealer and contact isuzu consumer affairs about the problem b/c it's a safety hazard. it's going in for 30k service next wed., so i'll chat with them about it.

makes me nervous that they had another vx in with exact same problem... hopefully just coincidence.

[Navigator]

Quick question, do you rotate your tires every 5000 miles. Odd that only the fronts show wear on the inside edge @ 30,000 if all four have been shuffled front to back and right to left every 5000. The type of wear you speak of is normal if you don't rotate or have poor balance or allignment of your wheels, which should also bee checked and fixed at time of rotation. Hope this helps.

[VAVX]

thanks for the response navigator. i'm rotating every other oil change, or roughly every 7-8k miles, since day one. that's what my local dealer recommended.

i also thought it odd that only the front two were showing wear. it was weird too, that they all seemed fine through the summer. but i do travel a lot and i guess having all that extra weight can rough up the alignment. i've put 20k on it since last december.

if they don't find anything next week, i guess i'll just have to keep a close watch.

[Tone]

What air pressure are you running? I doubt the dealer or Isuzu is going to help you on this matter though - sorry.

[Daver]

extra wear on the inner side of the front tires is a common problem with the stock alignment/suspension specs.

Since I upgraded my tires to a 1" larger diameter the problem doesn't seem nearly as apparent, but we'll see I suppose.

-Daver

[Quest]

Tire wear on an inner edge is in practice often due to a toe-in problem. All you would have to do is hit a curb hard enough. Did you notice the steering wheel get suddenly off-center at any point? I wonder if the mechanics who did the 30K service went for a joyride. Anyway, 2 other points: I just KNOW somebody's going to argue and say it HAS to be camber, but they would be wrong. Ask an alignment shop if you don't believe me. Also, if certain front end bushings get worn or damaged a standard front end alignment may not fix the problem due to the inability of modern alignment equipment to take the slop into account. Remember the really old alignment machines where the front tires went onto giant steel rollers? There was an advantage to that system: it measured actual behavior with front end slop (technically only with rear wheel drive, though). Do as much of your own thinking as possible, as not all alignment people are the geniuses one might hope for.

[addition] One way to check for loose bushings/bearings is to use a jack to put one front tire on about 4-6" of wood and then move the jack to lift the other front wheel into the air [front sway bar should be connected]. Make sure the ignition key is turned one click to unlock the steering. Grab the suspended (hanging) wheel at the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions and wiggle hard (push with one arm and pull with another, then rapidly alternate). Do you feel any movement? Do you hear any clunking? If so, get an assistant to help locate the problem. Ideally, repeat entire procedure with wood on opposite side (mostly to help detect problem with opposite wheel bearing).

[VehiCrazy]

I had the same thing happen. I didn't think of checking the alignment, since it was a brand new car!!! You would think that would be good to go from the factory. But it wasn't, I didn't realize it until around 20,000. I had to pay to have them do an alignment job, turns out it was way off. Really made me mad. Basically trashed the tires. Oh well, lesson well learned!!

[Teckhardt]

I had the same problem and it occured over a short period of time - less than 5k miles.

Should the alignment be done to different specs than factory?

[ScottinMA]

Originally posted by VehiCrazy
I had the same thing happen. I didn't think of checking the alignment, since it was a brand new car!!! You would think that would be good to go from the factory. But it wasn't, I didn't realize it until around 20,000. I had to pay to have them do an alignment job, turns out it was way off. Really made me mad. Basically trashed the tires. Oh well, lesson well learned!!

I have an O1 and thought that something was wrong right off the bat. Turned out that all four wheels had not been balanced properly and it was out of allignment as well. So it can come out of the showroom all screwed up.

Scott

[Cptnmorgan]

I retract.......See Tone's post below

God I love these forums!!!!

[VAVX]

i try to keep them right around 30 PSI. and no, i never noticed the steering/alignment shift all of a sudden... not while i've been driving it anyway -- no one else drives it, but i was the victim of a rear end bump and run in the parking lot at work. i guess that could have messed something up.

the bridgestone brochure i got at the shop recommends both back to front and right to left for 4 wheel dr vehicles. i was under the assumption that the isuzu dealer would know how to rotate my tires... hopefully they're doing it correctly. however, i have run into several isuzu dealership employees that know next to nothing about the vx.

i'll pose some of these questions to them wednesday when i'm up for 30k service and see what kind of answers i get.

thanks for all the feedback.

[Tone]

Only directional tires (as indicated by the arrows on their sidewalls) cannot be rotated side to side. It IS correct to criss/cross and front/back rotate to even wear and extend life on most all other radial tires (this assumes same size front and rear which we of course have). 30PSI on a 35 PSI max tire will cause them to wear a bit faster but not substantially.

[VAVX]

got my 30k service a couple days ago, and talked with my service rep about the problem... they didn't find anything out of the ordinary, and just recommended rotating the tires every 7500m, and doing alignment stuff a couple/few times a year. i guess it's worth it to pay an extra $150/year for a couple more alignments if it prevents spending $600 every 10k miles on new tires...

i guess we'll see!

thanks all.