I took my car in for it's first alignment two weeks ago since owning it in March. I knew when I picked it up that I would have to buy tires sooner than later. The guy at Tires Plus where I got the alignment said the rears were shot. I moved them from the front just before I got the alignment done. I had no idea they were this bad! I didn't get a print out of the exact numbers, although he did show it to me. I'm going to call and see if he can email them to me, or atleast tell me the numbers over the phone.

I do remember that the front toe was .2x on both sides. the camber at all four corners was between 1-1.2. These tires have 40k on them and besides the camber wear I bet I could have gotten another 10k+ out of them. I know the previous owner rotated the tires every oil change (5-7kmiles).

I have looked at the compliance bushing and I think that may be the culprit since both fronts are torn. Any ideas what else would cause this much wear? Tires Plus said all of the suspenion components were good to go when they "inspected" it. I have replaced the tires and don't want my new ones to be worn faster than normal!

 

Is your car lowered? By looking at these pics they are not good. And if you have aftermarket springs you should get a camber kit for the rear. Even I'd you said they are on spec, but at it's max. I have ingalls and tire wear are even.

 

at stock height toe should be zero at all 4 corners.

there was a TSB on it, however, the tread wear you have isn't like the wear depicted in the TSB. The tires should be worn evenly across the tread according to the TSB. Still, toe should be 0.

 

There is a TSB when using the sport suspension and only the camber is slightly different, but the toe is the same for base and sport.
Sport Suspension Kit Alignment Specifications
Doing an alignment on a ’04 RSX or ’04 TL equipped with the Sport Suspension Kit? Keep in mind the
alignment specs aren’t entirely the same as the standard specs in the S/M. Refer to this chart for the proper specs on these vehicles.

Toe-In Front 0 mm ± 2 mm Rear 2 mm ± 2 mm

As the caster/camber not adjustable didn't bother listing the values but if curious:

In degrees
Camber Standard F -0 degrees 30' +/- 30"
Sport F -0 degrees 40' +/- 30'

Standard R -1 degree +/-30'
Sport R -1 degree 20' +/-30'

 

Completely stock suspension. Car has 97k miles on it. The toe was .2x BEFORE the alignment and set to .0 after the alignment was done. Would .2x degrees of camber cause THAT much wear? I would think the wear would be more "uneven" rather than looking like extreme camber wear. ?
No vibration at any speed and the car didn't pull or anything before the alignment was fixed.

 

How many miles have you put on the car and maybe the alignment was way off when the previous owner had the car and he had it aligned just before your purchase and left the tires on as they were selling the TL. Did you know the previous owner, suspension mods?
If all corners are now in alignment not much else you can do then drive the car and keep an eye on the wear.

 

I've put 10k on it, and the tires were a little worn ("camber" wise) from what I could see when I got the car.


This could be. I can look throught the paperwork again and see if he had it aligned at the dealership he always had it serviced at.

*edit* I reread one email he replied with and he mentioned replacing the tires, so I imagine he knew they were worn.

I don't know him personally, but I contacted him via email after I bought the car. The "easiest" thing to do would be to email him again I suppose. No mods, he was an older gentlemen. Not to say that older guys don't mod cars.

*edit* I just sent him an email and hopefully he'll reply in the next day or two.

This is the plan, I was just hoping for an "easy" answer or at least some where/thing that I could check that might be more obvious than all of the options I have though of. I don't know all there is to know about why tires would wear this way, unless the toe being off is the reason.

 

The previous owner replied that he had the alignment done regularly whenver the vehicle was serviced. I'll have to look through the receipts to see if the aligment was noted on the service invoices.

 

I have the same problem on my 08 TL, no mods and I am the original owner. The OEM Turanza EL42's bit the dust only on the inside shoulders in less than 25K miles being rotated every 5 K miles. I run a set of Dunlop Graspics 2 in the winter and with over 30K miles no sign of the dreaded camber wear issue I see on the summer tires. I have had alignments done at several qualified shops including the Acura dealer and no one can explain why I see the different wear characteristics with different tires. The alignments always show with in spec and they all mention camber wear is a well know issue on the TL's. I know the next set of summer tires will not be EL 42's.

 

^Have you inspected your front compliance bushing? I wonder if that's the problem? The roads are warmer in the summer which helps speed up the process.

 

Is this on the rear? And is this a 5-link rear end? (pictures are no longer loading) If it is, then any difference in camber also causes a difference in toe, which will cause "camber wear" but really what you are seeing is toe wear concentrated on the inside of your tire because of the camber that you are running.

Had this problem on the TSX - if your toe is out even by a small amount on the rear, it shreds that tire. Better put in new camber and toe adjusting kits - I run ingalls on the back of my TSX.