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Rear Bald Tires

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mott441

New CEG'er
Joined
Jul 6, 2005
Messages
9
March of last year I had BJ's Wholesale replace my old tires with new BF Goodrich tires. Neither the most expensive nor cheapest tire they sell. I say middle of the road. Anyway, it seems that with under 12,000 driven since the tires have been put on, both rear tires are balding from the inside out while the front tires are perfect. Now, I'll admit I never had them rotated, but still - why such short life?
 
You should have a alignment check on your rear. Plus just an FYI a rotation is due (according to manual) per 6,000 miles. But yeah, check your alignment.
 
mott441 said:
March of last year I had BJ's Wholesale replace my old tires with new BF Goodrich tires. Neither the most expensive nor cheapest tire they sell. I say middle of the road. Anyway, it seems that with under 12,000 driven since the tires have been put on, both rear tires are balding from the inside out while the front tires are perfect. Now, I'll admit I never had them rotated, but still - why such short life?
Click to expand...

That's a sign of a negative camber issue, where the top of the tires are closer to the center of the vehicle than the bottoms. To some degree this could be compounded by the toe setting, the adjustment from left to right when the tires are viewed from above. Negative toe is when the front inside of the tire is closer to the centerline of the vehicle than the inner rear, and may be present in your case. Positive toe is the opposite.

The Contour only has toe adjustments from the factory. You may want to talk to an alignment guy you trust about getting some hard data on the alignment itself, and looking at your options. BAT makes a kit for the front suspension that allows the user to adjust camber by altering caster (the orientation, fore or aft, of the strut when viewed from the side). However, I'm not sure what your options are for the rear. Someone on here will, though.
 
Do as suggested above. Get an alignment check and see what the results are.

In addition, what size tires do you have at the back?
 
If the rear tires are worn from the inside out, then the real wheels are most likely toed OUT instead of toed IN a little.. get a 4 WHEEL alignment check - lots of shops are lazy and only do a 2 WHEEL (fronts only)...

Does the steering wheel point straight ahead as you drive? or is it cocked off to one side or the other? if you take your hands off the steering wheel, does the car still go straight? or go to one side or the other?
 
Wait, when you say inside, do you mean the physical middle of the tire, or the inside edge? If it is the middle of the tire, your tires have too much air, otherwise, everyone else has given you correct advice :)
 
I picked up two new tires from BJs and had them swap out the bald tires. I then went to a local garage shop and had an alignment performed. Thanks for the help.

Mott441
 
Repeated Problem

Repeated Problem

The last time I addressed this problem was a year ago. Since then, actually back in August, my car vibrated again. I returned the car to the garage that originally did the so-called 4 wheel alignment and had them re-do it. Well it's now 8 months later and the rear tires are experiencing the same problem. I guess the garage did a horrible job at the alignment. Time to use someone else. Perhaps I will go to Ford to fix this issue.
 
LauraSVT said:
Negative toe is when the front inside of the tire is closer to the centerline of the vehicle than the inner rear, and may be present in your case. Positive toe is the opposite.
Click to expand...
I see this response (and thread for that matter) is really old, but since the OP just revived it, I feel a need to point out this statement is backwards. Positive toe is toe-in. Negative toe is toe-out. This doesn't really matter to most people, as an alignment shop will know this, but in the event you are doing the alignment yourself at home, if you look at a spec and see a "-" in front and think the value is set for toe-in, your alignment will be very wrong.

At any rate, sounds like they didn't adjust the rear toe, unless you are very lowered or something is bent and the camber is way off causing the wear. It's very easy to check static toe with a couple jackstands, string, and a finely graduated scale. Or just take it into a shop, ask for a four wheel alignment, and make sure they give before and after printouts.
 
Always always always make sure you get the print out of the before and after readings. If they tell you they cant then they are jerking you around.
 
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