Uneven front tyre wear

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e24nut
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Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

I have a problem with uneven tyre wear on the inside front tyres on my 89 e24. Original wheels and correct profile tyres. I have had numerous wheel alignments including a grade bmw service agents bm tech who use the bmw specified wheel alighment kit but they have been unable to fix the problem. Any suggestions?
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by 603racing »

Did they measure your camber and caster as well? If you are getting inside tire wear on both front tires, there isn't too much that could be wrong with the alignment that will cause that.

That is usually caused by:
-incorrect toe adjustment
-excessive negative camber
-caster fits into the equation, but the result will be related to toe or camber

There are all sorts of things that can cause incorrect toe or excessive camber. But one of those two, or both, will very likely be the cause of your alignment issue.
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

Thanks. Appreciate your advice

Nut
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Brucey
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by Brucey »

another (very real) possibility is that some f-wit has screwed up your steering geometry so that;

a) (when the toe is set correctly in a straight line) the Ackerman geometry is screwed up so that the inside wheel turns too much on lock or

b) that the steering setup suffers from excessive bump steer, e.g. the setup goes way toe-out on the brakes.

There are any number of 'wrong parts fitted' or other faults (eg failing steering box mountings, centre link installed wrongly, aftermarket track arm ball joints with the wrong offset value, badly installed/wrong upper TCA bushings..) that could cause this.

Note also that just lowering the suspension (without taking appropriate measures) will cause the camber angle to go out and this will wear the tyres as you describe.

Taking the car to 'an alignment shop' is pretty much a waste of time if you have a fault of this sort; you really need someone who knows these cars very well to pick up the kinds of faults that might cause this pattern of tyre wear.

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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

ended up being a case of worn suspension bushings. Getting it on a dynamic balancer helped. thanks for replies
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

Unfortunately i thought i got the problem sorted but found that both front inside tyres worn down to canvas.
Got the car over a pit and had a look at the wheel alignment. All spot on. Suspension specialist says that there is little to work with as far as camber adjustment is concerned and suggested a camber kit to allow ti adjust the cambermore than the factory allows. The whole thing is counter intuative as:
A/ the suspension is stock and unmodified
B/all bushings are good
C/ multiple wheel alignments from multiple wheel alignment specialists have failed to remedy the problem over 10 years of excessive tyre wear!!
D/wheels are stock bmw honeycombs.
E/ the car has never been crashed and is straight

I think that i will go with the camber kit. But i dont understand how this situation has occured but i cant get to the bottom of it. I am sure BMW in their wisdom would send a car out of the factory with such an issue.

Any suggestuons before i invest in a camber kit?
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by jps635 »

May be a bit of a long shot but perhaps you're getting some chassis flex allowing the fronts to splay. Maybe consider fitting a strut brace.

Could do a quick check comparing the distance between the strut centres both when on the ground and in the air with the wheels hanging.
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

Thanks jps 635!
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

Looking back over the very helpful post replies and given that i thought the problem was sorted, i re-read brucey's reply which offers a range of possible causes. Trouble is finding someone who knows e 24s is as rare as rocking horse shit in Melbourne. Know anyone in melb brucey?
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by Brucey »

I'm on the wrong side of the orb for that I'm afraid.

Suggestion; there must be another E24 enthusiast near you who could cast an eye? If someone has a bunch of steering parts (many enthusiasts do) even if they are old ones, they can help identify if yours are really the correct things or not.

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e24nut
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

Thanks

Worth a try... Melbourne is short on e24 enthusiasts compated to sydney or Brisbane

Thx
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by daz635 »

e24nut

Give Dean Howe from Peninsular BMW a call or message he should be able to steer you in the right direction for somebody located in Melbourne

https://shop.peninsulabm.com/
https://www.facebook.com/PeninsulaBm/
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e24nut
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

Even though I thought I had solved the tyre wear issue by replacing some worn bushings I still have excessive negative camber causing wear on the inside edge of both front tyres. Looking at the front end with the car over a pit at the wheel alignment specialists, there is no more camber adjustment available.!!!
I spoke to a local BMW specialist who races an e24 and runs a BMW wrecker/mechanical shop. He mentioned that the 1988 update to the e24 adopted 7 series suspension components that are different to the pre 88 models. He thought that the problem may be related to incorrect pre 88 e24 control arms and or crossmember being fitted for some reason in the past and this is causing the negative camber issue that rips through my tyres at an alarming rate.

Although I have got some great advice from bigcoupe users on this I thought I would see if there any opinions on the above. I have had the car for over 10 years but have been unable to solve this issue.

As I don't want to start making major changes replacing suspension components on a possibly extremely expensive whim , I am not sure is this is the problem or even how to identify if it is the problem.

Rather than go through all of the complexity of the above I am considering fitting a camber kit (if I can get one) or modifying the front end which a local suspension specialist to allow more camber adjustment.

This seems like a more straightforward solution to me. Has anyone had experience with fitting a camber kit to an e24?

Thanks
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by plip1953 »

What kind of static camber and toe settings are on the car right now. And are they within the OE spec range?

If in doubt it's rarely, if ever, a bad thing to set toe at zero. Excessive negative camber can, as already mentioned, give rise to bad tyre wear, but what does "excessive" amount to in this instance? Albeit on a totally different car, but still a Macpherson strut arrangement, I run 3 degs of neg camber and don't suffer tyre wear in day to day running. The castor setting is also very important because it will determine how much induced camber is created during turning.

But as Brucey points out there are other important factors, although it seems logical to assume these should only come into play if somehow or other the way your particular suspension components deviate from OE.

So can we have some numbers please?
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

Ok phil.will do. I don't have any it will get some this week
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by baders »

You could use RealOEM to confirm yourself what the BMW specialist is saying regarding 7 series suspension.
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by Brucey »

e24nut wrote: Sat Dec 14, 2019 10:55 pm Even though I thought I had solved the tyre wear issue by replacing some worn bushings I still have excessive negative camber causing wear on the inside edge of both front tyres. Looking at the front end with the car over a pit at the wheel alignment specialists, there is no more camber adjustment available.!!!
eh? The camber isn't normally adjustable. In standard cars the suspension geometry is defined by the components used (and the ride height). The only thing that is readily adjustable is the toe, via the track rod. If you mean what you say then

a) I'm not sure what adjustment you refer to; there isn't a separate adjuster for the camber per se and
b) if you do have excess camber then you can only have damaged parts, wrong parts, or insanely low ride height or something.
c) if you have run out of toe setting adjustment then you almost certainly have the wrong parts fitted somewhere.

I spoke to a local BMW specialist who races an e24 and runs a BMW wrecker/mechanical shop. He mentioned that the 1988 update to the e24 adopted 7 series suspension components that are different to the pre 88 models. He thought that the problem may be related to incorrect pre 88 e24 control arms and or crossmember being fitted for some reason in the past and this is causing the negative camber issue that rips through my tyres at an alarming rate.
My B.S. alert is going off like a siren. You only need to spend five minutes under a few E24s or less than a minute examining the ETK to work out that there are only two types of control arm etc used on E24; the pre 5/82 (E12) setup, and, er, everything else, which is the E28 setup. The suspension was one thing they left alone in the later cars; IIRC the only differences are detail ones, in the spec of OEM dampers and the way the springs are made (with fewer turns).

However the 'wrong parts fitted' hypothesis is might be correct. My suspicion is that you might just have an E34 centre tie rod fitted; this is superficially similar looking, but it is longer than the E24/E28 item. I have had more than one moron try and sell me one of these as if it is the right thing for an E24. A simple check you can do is to measure the distances between the idler arm pivots and the steering box arm pivots; the distance between the swivels in the centre tie rod should be the same as the distance between the mountings on the subframe. If anyone has this measurement to hand then please post it. If not I shall measure a spare centre tie rod when I get the chance. IIRC this measurement on an E34 part is about 2cm different. If some twerp managed to fit an E34 centre tie rod to an E24 (even though it is very obviously completely the wrong thing when you hold the two parts side by side) then you could run out of toe adjustment (the track rods would be 'too short' (edit; sorry I meant 'not short enough'... :roll: ) ) and the Ackerman geometry would be completely banjaxed. With bad Ackerman geometry you could set the car up to go in a straight line OK but you would be scrubbing the tyres out at ferocious speed every time you go round a corner.

Other common faults include

- that the upper control arm bushings are knackered, wrong type or simply fitted the wrong way round (which produces insane toe changes when braking)
- that the steering box is breaking off the subframe; typically the inboard steering box bracket breaks and this lets the steering box flap about. If this is either already broken and/or has been badly repaired then you could have badly wrong steering geometry.

BTW I don't know if it is possible to fit the wrong control arms (from a 7er or a 5er) and mess things up that way; some swaps are OK (and work) but they won't all be the same, for sure.

My suggestion upthread was that you compare your car with a 'known good' example. I still think this is a good idea.

hth

cheers
Last edited by Brucey on Wed Dec 18, 2019 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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e24nut
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by e24nut »

Thanks Brucey. I really appreciate your advice. My bs alarm has been going off as well but. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a good example for comparison and knowledge of E 24s in Melbourne is very limited. The points you raise are definitely worth checking out. I will let you know how the investigation goes.once again thanks
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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by Brucey »

the distance between the built in swivels in the E28/E24 centre track rod (which the steering box and idler arm connect to) is ~49.5cm. The track rod mounting tapers are inclined but are each set about 3.5cm further out. I don't have an E34 one to hand to compare but it is longer than that.

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Re: Uneven front tyre wear

Post by Tommys 89 635 »

My .02 cents on the only 7 series part is the bushing. My shop has them shaved down to fit, I've been using them for years.
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