# tires oh tires



## goatrider (Feb 24, 2008)

I HAVE A 2004 TORRID RED AUTOMATIC GTO. I CHANGED MY ORIGINAL SET OF TIRES AT 14,000 MILES. I HAVE 24,000 ON THE CAR AND WERE ALMOST READY FOR THE SECOND SET! THE FRONT TIRES ARE WEARING ON THE OUTSIDE AND THE REAR TIRES ARE WEARING IN THE CENTER. TIRE PRESSURE IS ALWAYS CHECKED. I DRIVE 3 MILES A DAY TO WORK AND BACK AND FORTH TO THE STORE EVERY NOW AND THEN. I HAVENT SPUN THE TIRES.(ALTHOUGH I WOULD LIKE TOO!) TCS IS ALWAYS ON! I HAVE HAD AN ALIGNMENT 2 TIMES AND I DONT HAVE THE STRUT RUB PROBLEM. THIS IS REALLY GETTING EXPENSIVE! ANY SUGGESTIONS?:willy::willy:


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## raspantienator (Nov 20, 2007)

Does sound excessive with the way you drive. I drive a little harder. I've only put 1000 on mine but I'll keep a look out for wear.


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## Wing_Nut (Mar 6, 2005)

goatrider said:


> I HAVE A 2004 TORRID RED AUTOMATIC GTO. I CHANGED MY ORIGINAL SET OF TIRES AT 14,000 MILES. I HAVE 24,000 ON THE CAR AND WERE ALMOST READY FOR THE SECOND SET! THE FRONT TIRES ARE WEARING ON THE OUTSIDE AND THE REAR TIRES ARE WEARING IN THE CENTER. TIRE PRESSURE IS ALWAYS CHECKED. I DRIVE 3 MILES A DAY TO WORK AND BACK AND FORTH TO THE STORE EVERY NOW AND THEN. I HAVENT SPUN THE TIRES.(ALTHOUGH I WOULD LIKE TOO!) TCS IS ALWAYS ON! I HAVE HAD AN ALIGNMENT 2 TIMES AND I DONT HAVE THE STRUT RUB PROBLEM. THIS IS REALLY GETTING EXPENSIVE! ANY SUGGESTIONS?:willy::willy:


In my experience that is really excessive wear for a GTO. 

I beat the pi$$ out of the OEM KDWS's and they lasted more than 20K. Spun em, smoked em, quite a few runs north of 140. Even a soft performance tire like the Goodyear F1 GS-D3 should give you more than 10K the way you describe your driving habits.

What tires replaced the OEM's?

Who did you use for the alignments? A GM dealer or 3rd party? Are they qualified? Do they have the proper equipment? Did you deviate from factory caster and camber to change the handling?

What pressure do you maintain? I maintained mine at 34 PSI. That seemed to produce relatively even wear across the the entire footprint.

What sort of surface are you driving on, relatively smooth asphalt, or a combination of potholes and frost heaves?

Are you the original owner of the car? If not, are you sure it hasn't been in an accident? No frame damage? No suspension parts bent or out of alignment? Wheels all true?

Where is the most severe wear? Center? Edge? Uniform?

Do you rotate the tires at approx 5K miles? Sounds like you've got different wear patterns front and rear.

What about other wear characteristics? Any cupping? Have you checked the shocks & struts for leaks?

Who drives the car other than you?


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## GOATTEE (Nov 30, 2006)

I agree that that is excessive tire wear. I have my original factory BF Goodrich TAs and I have 13K on the car and they still look new. I spin them sometimes. I had to replace one rear back tire at 11K because I got a screw in the side wall and the tread looks the same as the the tread on the old tires.


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## fergyflyer (Apr 18, 2005)

I had in the neighborhood of 100 passes at a drag strip. I rotated the tires so they wore evenly and had 4/32 at 18,000 miles. 4/32 is about the minimum I go too in florida with all the rain we get. Peobably could have gotten another 5-7,000 out of them.

I think you either got a bad batch of tires, or since it's happened twice I'd look at alignment or suspension issues.


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

I just had my original tires changed out. They had over 26K on them and was told they'd still pass inspection. I religiously rotated at 5K and maintained them properly but within the last 5K the front left tire had tread worn off on the inside but not enough to fail the tire. No explanation for this. It just wore and the alignment was within tolerance. I changed them out anyway, but they could have gone a good 5K more, Plenty of tread left on all 4 tires. Essentially I could have gotten over 30K. Not bad for a tire good for about 20K. 

The tires I replaced them with came from one of the cars involved in the great train wreck of 05. Will be interesting to see if I get the same kind of wear on these. 

Some tires will just wear prematurely. My son's Continentals on his 06 Cobolt wore out within 15K. All 4 were shot, GM replaced all 4 under warranty. The dealer said this happens from time to time. 


Goatrider: If your tires wore out at 14K and they were rotated and maintained, your dealer should have replaced them under warranty. Tires *ARE COVERED *under warranty from premature wear. 

BTW.... Welcome to the Forum. :cheers


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## PAULCAPASSO (Dec 25, 2007)

You defenatly need to have that realigned by atleast the dealer. DO NOT EVER BRING TO MIDAS OR ANY OTHER EQUIVELENT SHOPS. My experience... they never align the car correctly and do not go by spec. I watched someone at townfair tire align my truck by using rear tires as a guide, they sit narrower on the truck then the fronts do on the silverado 2500hd. because of that i had the wheels toe'd out. It ate the tires up in 10k miles. Another factor, the rear tires will only wear in the center from over inflation, unless the center of the tire has less tread from the factory for some reason and the body of the tire is round from side to side. On the front tires, camber and toe could be factors if not both together then one or the other, or your cornering to hard. Have the GM dealer align it. Tires just dont wear unevenly!


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## itsagto (Sep 7, 2005)

I've got 9K on my '05, drove somewhat hard but didn't beat on the car and my tires are toast...At 6K the rears wore out and fronts chewed up and cupped the edges. Rotated and aligned them to try to get more life out of them. The alignment was not out of spec, only had to tweek the front toe slightly. I have seen three other low mileage cars that chewed the front tires up just like mine. GM said this was the nature of this sports car and driver habits...


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

itsagto said:


> I've got 9K on my '05, drove somewhat hard but didn't beat on the car and my tires are toast...At 6K the rears wore out and fronts chewed up and cupped the edges. Rotated and aligned them to try to get more life out of them. The alignment was not out of spec, only had to tweek the front toe slightly. I have seen three other low mileage cars that chewed the front tires up just like mine. GM said this was the nature of this sports car and driver habits...


I hope you didn't let it go at that. It is NOT normal for tires to toast at 6K or even 9K. Unless the dealer can prove you abused the car, you should have new tires and the front end taken care of under warranty. It is not the nature of this car to chew up tires at 9K.


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## 5.8LImportEater (Oct 12, 2008)

Hey, I have a friend with an 04 or 05 gto, *the 350 hp one* that is having the EXACT same problems. She has had 2 sets of tires from the dealer that she got the car from, and they even did the alignment both times claiming that they fixed the problem. They didn't though. This is the third time the tires have worn excessively within one year. 

I didn't know what to do for her, so I checked the TSB's for both 04-05 and neither one really had a significant or relevant TSB. Only a clunk or bad bushing. Has anyone figured out the problem here with the tires? I would love to know as I am looking at a GTO for my fiance *don't even start this girl can drive her ass off* but I really don't want to deal with problems like this. 

The car in question is a DD Auto, stock suspension, stock motor, stock car for all intensive purposes. She drives it pretty easy, doesn't go corner carving or driving too fast, only thing she ever does is get on it from a stoplight once in a while. 

Any help would be appreciated.
Chris


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

Has the car been aligned in the rear as well? Have the tires been properly balanced? Check the inside of the wheels for missing counter balance weights. You could still have a wheel balance problem even though it may not be real pronounced in the steering wheel. How is the condition of the struts? If the dealer cannot find the cause of this they should be referring the car to a specialist.


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## 5.8LImportEater (Oct 12, 2008)

She said it was aligned 2 different times now, and it doesn't have many miles, so i don't think it has worn struts or shocks. The rear alignment, I don't know about, I will ask her. Considering that this has been 3 sets of tires so far, and the 4th is not far off, I wouldn't think that all 3 sets of tires would have a balance issues. I could be wrong, but I would think one of the 3 sets would be balanced right.

Do these have any sort of bushing issues? I think I will suggest she take it to a specialist, to have a 4 wheel alignment.
Chris


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

I was just throwing ideas out there. It's apparent there is a major front end problem going on with that car. Tie-rods, bushings etc... IMO a complete overhaul of that front end is warranted.

Food for thought..(if the car is still under warranty which I suspect it is) if it comes to replacement of some or all parts and those parts are hard to come by from GM, GM has authorized aftermarket parts be used in the OEM parts place.

Case in point.. my local dealer (a while back) had a GTO in for front end problems and those parts were on back order. 30 days if I recall... GM authorized Pedders replacement parts. Somebody lucked out...

If you are getting a run around I'd suggest getting a field rep in and get them involved.


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## biguglytruck (Aug 20, 2007)

You might want to look for the date code on the tires. When buying tires new really means no miles, not really new. Tires do have a production date code on them that you can check. Try this link for more info on them.Tire Tech Information - Determining the Age of a Tire

Hope it may help out some, at least some thing to look at for future tire purchases.


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

Or you can refer to this thread...
http://www.gtoforum.com/f40/identifying-tires-production-date-speed-rating-load-range-16781/


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## shadrag (Oct 18, 2008)

Radius rod bushings anyone?


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## dms (Jun 27, 2005)

Inside tire wear is a pattern failure and well documented. Now the question is how does this happen and why does it usually start after 10K-12K miles?

The issue is really a 2 point concern. It starts with damage that is created from shipping the GTOs here to the states. Holden installed spring blocks on the front of the GTOs to keep the front coils from movement on the big boat ride, which normally goes from Australia, to Southeast Asia, and then to Benicia i California. The GTOs are strapped down very tightly. This creates major upward pressure on the bushing and begins the damage to the strut bushing. This process also collapses the there coils as well. has anyone ever seen a stock GTO that the height of the rear is higher than the front? NO. But before they left the docks, They were.

So the strut bushings are starting to be collapsed when on the show room floor. It is the rare GTO that the strut bushings are not collapsed in the 1/2 inch range. But the collapsing bushing is just the start and does not cause the align concern directly. But when it collapses, it also damages the strength of the bushing center section. This will cause the center to start to migrate to the engine . When this occurs, the bushing can no longer support the strut shaft position. In fact probably most of the OEM strut bushes in the USA are bad or going bad. When the strut bush cannot hold the strut shaft centered, then the cambers go negative, but worse of all you will have changing cambers that cause toe change that really wipe out the inside tires, as well as your dynamic cambers(actual cambers while you are driving) are actually way out of specs. Thus the serious tire wear usually starting after 12k. The strut bushing can cause strut rub since it is allowing the strut shaft to move around all over the place, and causing side to side flex of the sidewall. I have seen strut contact with 1/2 inch strut to tire clearance and torn strut bushings.

The other part of the equation are seriously weak radius rod bushings. GM is seriously concerned and over concerned about noise transmission. So the designed a radius rod bushing that allows lots of movement and fluid fill it to try and dampen the noise and movement. THIS DOES NOT WORK!
It is normal to do a brake test at 7 to 8 mph, jam on the brakes, and see the front wheels kick back 2 inches. We have seen this movement bad enough as to cause the front wheels to hit the back of the fenders. this causes serious caster change, and major toe change, which again aggrivates inner tire wear and adds to cupping.

The solutions are to upgrade the front radius rod bushings, and strut bushings with non GM stuff and re-align the front end, and keep a pencil width clearance between the front tires and struts


Rob at Wretched can help all of you on this
mike
dms


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