Any ideas?

Haven't tracked it.

my new tyres are soft, they have great lateral grip, and i'm thinking that may be the reason.

Any ideas?

Haven't tracked it.

my new tyres are soft, they have great lateral grip, and i'm thinking that may be the reason.


Wheel aligned laterly.. Vey common sympton for toe being out.

Outside or inside.? what camber like on front tyres..??

unless the car has camber bolts its impossible to have any camber on the front.. no matter how low u go it will always be straight up and down.

like ego said sounds like toe wear.. maybe even slightly low tyre pressure.. or too much hard cornering lol

I defiantly have suffered from this, had my wheels alligned and they warned me that my tyre pressure was too low.

Now the damage is done :(

If you enjoy a few corners, I think its a magna thing, designed to understeer and way too much weight over the front, the tyres cannot handle it. Getting tyres with a hard shoulder might help. My car was fine until I owned and drove it, tried lowering suspension, camber bolts and some camber, very high tyre pressures and full alignment, but the front shoulders still wear very fast.

I have learned to accept it lol

Ollie

They'll understeer if you give them a stupid situation to deal with, like a high cornering load at 70km/h with WOT in second gear. Otherwise they're remarkably well behaved if you balance the throttle and allow smooth inputs. I've destroyed the trailing edges of the shoulder blocks of my front tyres, but that was from a defensive driving course and the brake & evade tests.

Wheel aligned laterly.. Vey common sympton for toe being out.

Outside or inside.? what camber like on front tyres..??

yeah, had it aligned 3 months ago when i got car back on road along with new tyres.

outside. camber, is unknown. had whiteline camber kit, but i think they might be ****.

unless the car has camber bolts its impossible to have any camber on the front.. no matter how low u go it will always be straight up and down.

like ego said sounds like toe wear.. maybe even slightly low tyre pressure.. or too much hard cornering lol

yeah, i had whiteline ones on there, not sure if they helped, because they were still wearing a little too fast for my liking.

yeah, maybe it is just due for an alignment...
what's too much? there is a time and place i would say. and all the other times when i feel like it.

If you enjoy a few corners, I think its a magna thing, designed to understeer and way too much weight over the front, the tyres cannot handle it. Getting tyres with a hard shoulder might help. My car was fine until I owned and drove it, tried lowering suspension, camber bolts and some camber, very high tyre pressures and full alignment, but the front shoulders still wear very fast.

I have learned to accept it lol

Ollie

yeah acknowledge the magna's un-kart like handling, but just wanted to ask you guys what you thought and see if there were any suggestions. like camber kits of a different variety.

get some k-sport coil overs, there so adjustable its crazy, and they give you a "kart like feel"

Well 3months is a while.. so a wheel alignment is prob first step.. You wont toe on "0" on the front. after all it is a road car not a race car.. With camber if it doing that much damage to the tyres in 3 months you would be able to see camber with your own eyes. its very odd that the outsides are wearing heavly.. It very common for inside wear..

Wheel alignment, and tyre pressure.....

Heavy FWD cars with incorrect alignment will wear out the tyres very quickly.....

ALL WRONG.

Cause is the rear to front weight transfer that occurs on a FWD car when cornering. Start to corner, there is a big weight transfer from the back of the car to the front, this effect comes out at the outer edge of the tyre that is on the outside of the corner.
This is why a FWD car naturally wants to understeer as this weight is always trying to push the front of the car wide in a corner.

Solution is to add a rear swaybar. For a Magna at least 18mm in diameter. The less weight transfer there is the less understeer and less tyre wear.

There used to be an article about this on the Whiteline site.

Where I worked several years ago, the Production Manager had a Magna Advance. Drove it like a *****, however after about 20,000Ks the outside edges of the front tyres were wearing down much faster than the rest of the tread.
This is one of the reasons that initially the Sports variants had a rear sway bar added. Ending up with all the TL/TW models having rear bars and the AWD variants having their rear bar size increased.
Gerry

ALL WRONG.

Cause is the rear to front weight transfer that occurs on a FWD car when cornering. Start to corner, there is a big weight transfer from the back of the car to the front, this effect comes out at the outer edge of the tyre that is on the outside of the corner.
This is why a FWD car naturally wants to understeer as this weight is always trying to push the front of the car wide in a corner.

Solution is to add a rear swaybar. For a Magna at least 18mm in diameter. The less weight transfer there is the less understeer and less tyre wear.

There used to be an article about this on the Whiteline site.

Where I worked several years ago, the Production Manager had a Magna Advance. Drove it like a *****, however after about 20,000Ks the outside edges of the front tyres were wearing down much faster than the rest of the tread.
This is one of the reasons that initially the Sports variants had a rear sway bar added. Ending up with all the TL/TW models having rear bars and the AWD variants having their rear bar size increased.
Gerry

Well he has a ralliart and i think they got a 18mm sway bar on the rear... MMM what you say makes loads of sense but still not convinced...:)

My fronts were wearing on the outside edge, but the alignment is wayout.

the first set of tyres I had on my 18s wore out on the shoulders... that was because the tyre pressure was 36psi. that set of tyres (Falken 452s I think) lasted 10k km on the front. the rears were fine.

since then I have used 40psi in the fronts on the road and haven't had any premature shoulder wear.

cheers,
.wook

i run 36psi in my 19's and they are wearing fine. I've done some prettyhard cornering around bathurst and around my town and i've done a 6000'ks on them and there still fine. i'm nilly due for a roatation

Well 3months is a while.. so a wheel alignment is prob first step.. You wont toe on "0" on the front. after all it is a road car not a race car.. With camber if it doing that much damage to the tyres in 3 months you would be able to see camber with your own eyes. its very odd that the outsides are wearing heavly.. It very common for inside wear..

ok, i will take it to heasman's for an alignment or check anyway.

with my experience as a mechanic FWD cars and nugget 4WD's always lean on the outside shoulders.

thanks but, will check that out.

ALL WRONG.

Cause is the rear to front weight transfer that occurs on a FWD car when cornering. Start to corner, there is a big weight transfer from the back of the car to the front, this effect comes out at the outer edge of the tyre that is on the outside of the corner.
This is why a FWD car naturally wants to understeer as this weight is always trying to push the front of the car wide in a corner.

Solution is to add a rear swaybar. For a Magna at least 18mm in diameter. The less weight transfer there is the less understeer and less tyre wear.

There used to be an article about this on the Whiteline site.

Where I worked several years ago, the Production Manager had a Magna Advance. Drove it like a *****, however after about 20,000Ks the outside edges of the front tyres were wearing down much faster than the rest of the tread.
This is one of the reasons that initially the Sports variants had a rear sway bar added. Ending up with all the TL/TW models having rear bars and the AWD variants having their rear bar size increased.
Gerry

have the upgraded whiteline in car, but i don't think this is the determining factor. its probably toe

the first set of tyres I had on my 18s wore out on the shoulders... that was because the tyre pressure was 36psi. that set of tyres (Falken 452s I think) lasted 10k km on the front. the rears were fine.

since then I have used 40psi in the fronts on the road and haven't had any premature shoulder wear.

cheers,
.wook

What tyre pressures do you set your tyres at?

i have them at 40PSI. in an attempt to reduce this wear.

mind you on my last kuhmos, i had them at 36PSI, and while the shoulders were the first to wear, they were not as premature as this.

If you enjoy a few corners, I think its a magna thing, designed to understeer and way too much weight over the front, the tyres cannot handle it.

Bollucks, bad wear on the shoulders just means bad alignment and/or driving habits.

I manage to thrash my car around a track and wear my tyres almost perfectly evenly, at MUCH higher cornering loads and speeds you'll ever see from fanging around the streets. And understeer is non-existent if you know how to drive correctly.

Apart from bad suspension geometry, the #1 way people **** the shoulders of the tyes is bad driving habits while fanging it. Here's some tips:

-Turn in smoothly, don't yank the wheel or turn it too quickly/jerkily. Doing so means the suspension doesn't get time to load up properly into a corner, and the car understeers, and "falls over" on the shoulder of the outside front tyre. Turn-in smoothly and let the car "lean over" onto he outside wheels progressively.

- Don't brake mid corner. A common mistake is to go too hot into a corner, start understeering, then jump on the brakes mid-corner. This overloads the front tyres and in particular the shoulders horribly.

If you are going fast, a quick light dab of the brakes as you start to turn in will dial out understeer, by promoting a bit of weight shift over the front wheels and increasing front-end grip. You should not be on the brakes in the middle of a corner, or on them while turning, this ****s the front tyres.

Getting good wear from tyes is about having good suspension geometry, and managing weight shift of the car if you are caining it, so you work the tyres evenly rather than rolling the car over onto the front outside shoulders.

IMO for a street magna -1.5 deg camber at the front is perfect. It will make negilible to overall tye wear in a straght line, and actually greatly improve wear on the shoulders around corners.

Oh yeah, high profile tyres with sloppy sidewalls will also tend to wear badly on the shoulders if you push it hard, as when you load the car up on the front outside tyre it will roll and "fall over" onto the shoulders/sidewall.

38-42 Psi is fine for tyre pressure..:)

Thanks Chisholm, awesome post, will be modifying how I take some corners

ALL WRONG.

Cause is the rear to front weight transfer that occurs on a FWD car when cornering. Start to corner, there is a big weight transfer from the back of the car to the front, this effect comes out at the outer edge of the tyre that is on the outside of the corner.
This is why a FWD car naturally wants to understeer as this weight is always trying to push the front of the car wide in a corner.

Solution is to add a rear swaybar. For a Magna at least 18mm in diameter. The less weight transfer there is the less understeer and less tyre wear.


Im sorry, but you have no idea how suspension works.

A sway bar helps reduce torsional action (twist) in a car. This twist occurs from side to side, not front to back.

Weight transfer cannot be stopped by a sway bar, physically impossible. The laws of physics and common sense are against you here.

Weight transfer happens when you slow down, or speed up, and the weight of the vehicle shifts over an axis. Stiff front suspension will reduce too much weight being put over the front wheels as the springs will resist the weight transfer.

The main benefit from a rear sway bar is reducing body roll. Helps your car feel more like a car, not a boat. By reducing torsional twist, you improve weight distribution at the front wheels aswell.

As for where you think weight transfer happens, no, this does not happen at the outer edge of the tyre. As you corner harder, weight will also transfer to the opposite side of the car at which you corner.

Proper suspension set ups maintain a flat contact surface area of the tyre. Poor suspension set ups allow the car to roll onto the outer edge of its tyre (VT-VX commodores for example, due to a poor single wishbone IRS set up) causing excess tyre wear.

In everyday situations, excess wear on the outer edge is due to either:
a) under inflated tyres (both edges)
b) incorrect wheel alignment
c) you racing through the streets thinking your car a racing machine, forgetting that your car has limits, and that your sidewalls are softer than McDonalds Soft Serve icecream.

c) you racing through the streets thinking your car a racing machine, forgetting that your car has limits, and that your sidewalls are softer than McDonalds Soft Serve icecream.


I pick this one..... haha:bowrofl:

I also say that a REAR swaybay helps the weight transfer... by stopping the rear from rolling over you take some of the load off the front outside tire....

Bollucks, bad wear on the shoulders just means bad alignment and/or driving habits.

I manage to thrash my car around a track and wear my tyres almost perfectly evenly, at MUCH higher cornering loads and speeds you'll ever see from fanging around the streets. And understeer is non-existent if you know how to drive correctly.

Apart from bad suspension geometry, the #1 way people **** the shoulders of the tyes is bad driving habits while fanging it. Here's some tips:

-Turn in smoothly, don't yank the wheel or turn it too quickly/jerkily. Doing so means the suspension doesn't get time to load up properly into a corner, and the car understeers, and "falls over" on the shoulder of the outside front tyre. Turn-in smoothly and let the car "lean over" onto he outside wheels progressively.

- Don't brake mid corner. A common mistake is to go too hot into a corner, start understeering, then jump on the brakes mid-corner. This overloads the front tyres and in particular the shoulders horribly.

If you are going fast, a quick light dab of the brakes as you start to turn in will dial out understeer, by promoting a bit of weight shift over the front wheels and increasing front-end grip. You should not be on the brakes in the middle of a corner, or on them while turning, this ****s the front tyres.

Getting good wear from tyes is about having good suspension geometry, and managing weight shift of the car if you are caining it, so you work the tyres evenly rather than rolling the car over onto the front outside shoulders.

IMO for a street magna -1.5 deg camber at the front is perfect. It will make negilible to overall tye wear in a straght line, and actually greatly improve wear on the shoulders around corners.

Oh yeah, high profile tyres with sloppy sidewalls will also tend to wear badly on the shoulders if you push it hard, as when you load the car up on the front outside tyre it will roll and "fall over" onto the shoulders/sidewall.

Thanks. Makes sense.

I pick this one..... haha:bowrofl:

I also say that a REAR swaybay helps the weight transfer... by stopping the rear from rolling over you take some of the load off the front outside tire....

:P

Rear sway bar by reducing body roll, helps weight distribution between the front tyres (pretty sure i mentioned this) it helps reduce lateral weight transfer to a degree yes.

Weight transfer between front and rear of the car, no, a sway bar cant.

Bollucks, bad wear on the shoulders just means bad alignment and/or driving habits.

I manage to thrash my car around a track and wear my tyres almost perfectly evenly, at MUCH higher cornering loads and speeds you'll ever see from fanging around the streets. And understeer is non-existent if you know how to drive correctly.

Apart from bad suspension geometry, the #1 way people **** the shoulders of the tyes is bad driving habits while fanging it. Here's some tips:

-Turn in smoothly, don't yank the wheel or turn it too quickly/jerkily. Doing so means the suspension doesn't get time to load up properly into a corner, and the car understeers, and "falls over" on the shoulder of the outside front tyre. Turn-in smoothly and let the car "lean over" onto he outside wheels progressively.

- Don't brake mid corner. A common mistake is to go too hot into a corner, start understeering, then jump on the brakes mid-corner. This overloads the front tyres and in particular the shoulders horribly.

If you are going fast, a quick light dab of the brakes as you start to turn in will dial out understeer, by promoting a bit of weight shift over the front wheels and increasing front-end grip. You should not be on the brakes in the middle of a corner, or on them while turning, this ****s the front tyres.

Getting good wear from tyes is about having good suspension geometry, and managing weight shift of the car if you are caining it, so you work the tyres evenly rather than rolling the car over onto the front outside shoulders.

IMO for a street magna -1.5 deg camber at the front is perfect. It will make negilible to overall tye wear in a straght line, and actually greatly improve wear on the shoulders around corners.

Oh yeah, high profile tyres with sloppy sidewalls will also tend to wear badly on the shoulders if you push it hard, as when you load the car up on the front outside tyre it will roll and "fall over" onto the shoulders/sidewall.

do you think a camber kit is necessary? which one is the best? i think my whiteline ones moved.

:P

Rear sway bar by reducing body roll, helps weight distribution between the front tyres (pretty sure i mentioned this) it helps reduce lateral weight transfer to a degree yes.

Weight transfer between front and rear of the car, no, a sway bar cant.

By reducing "lateral" weight transfer you will reduce "front and rear" weight transfer also.

A rear swaybar will greatly affect front shoulder tyre wear by giving the front more grip and putting more work on the rear tyres. After I fitted a rear swaybar, even though I could corner WAY faster with the suspension work I did, the shoulder wear rate actually seemed to reduce a little.

Im sure changing my driving habits will help, but personally sharp changes in direction is half my fun, and needs to be done through roundabouts and the like, so its a bit of a compromise really.

Ollie

do you think a camber kit is necessary? which one is the best? i think my whiteline ones moved.

Magnas don't have any camber adjustment, so yes you need a camber kit to run a bit of negative camber. Whiteline and KMAC both make bolt-style camber kits which work fine and are pretty cheap.

The KMAC kit costs a bit more to fit, but is arguably a better design. The Whiteline kit can "slip" out of position over time.

Or you can get adjustable strut tops, which will give you an easier and wider range of adjustment, as well being able to adjust castor. But they are much expensive.

i still say just get k-sport coil overs, they have pillowball top mounts and 36 dampening levels, once you driven a car with them you will never go back

i still say just get k-sport coil overs, they have pillowball top mounts and 36 dampening levels, once you driven a car with them you will never go back

Yeah good thing they are so affordable.

i still say just get k-sport coil overs, they have pillowball top mounts and 36 dampening levels, once you driven a car with them you will never go back

yeah, too much god damn money.

magna's aren't worth much nowadays and they get worse. i love her, like a child. but it comes too close to a fraction of the value of the car.

By reducing "lateral" weight transfer you will reduce "front and rear" weight transfer also.

A rear swaybar will greatly affect front shoulder tyre wear by giving the front more grip and putting more work on the rear tyres. After I fitted a rear swaybar, even though I could corner WAY faster with the suspension work I did, the shoulder wear rate actually seemed to reduce a little.

Im sure changing my driving habits will help, but personally sharp changes in direction is half my fun, and needs to be done through roundabouts and the like, so its a bit of a compromise really.

Ollie


thanks Ollie.... i couldnt be bothered goin blue in the face,,, haha

booked in at heasman's tomorrow.

they will have a look and diagnose.

i think its odd, if its the alignment. i mean, it was done 3 months ago, so unless it got knocked out shortly after that, i'm not sure what sure...

any way, i'll report back here as soon as i hear.

Thanks everyone.

OK.
Working down a list.


Outside edge wear much worse that the last batch of tyres.

N° 1 suspect will be wheel aligment - too much toe in will be the cause.
Put your hands palm to palm together. Move apart a bit, then make the finger tip end closer that your wrists. Imagine these are tyres. Push them down the road.
All the load comes on the outside edges first. Hence outside edge wear.

N° 2 - different tyres.

N° 3- Tyre pressure. Low pressure means that there is more load on the edges of the tyre tread. Manufacturers recommended tyre pressures are usually biased towards comfort, NOT towards good handling.

N° 4 and on are all basic characteristics of the suspension of your car.
However FWD experts seem to recommend that the single biggest improvement can be made by either adding a rear swaybar to a car that does not have one. i.e a Gen 2, or the basic Gen3 cars.
From then on I would be looking at tyre aspect ratios, the right amount of negative camber and increasing the front caster angle.

As you can see from my profile I have a AWD sports.
To be honest the handling of the base, unmodified car for an enthusiastic driver was not really inspiring.

I, because of circumstances, put 17's on first, car a little better.
Then did the rear and front bars. Much better.
Kings Springs. Small improvement.
Konis another improvement.
Front caster bushes - Lovely.

Tyre wear is very even. Corner turn in and general handling are significantly sharper.
Gerry

By reducing "lateral" weight transfer you will reduce "front and rear" weight transfer also.

Ok - How?

Give me an explanation, how stopping the body from twisting mid corner, you reduce front to rear weight transfer while braking before the corner.

Ok - How?

Give me an explanation, how stopping the body from twisting mid corner.

Wrap the spings in cling wrap then fill with cement.. no body roll then..:)


How about we all take a chill pill. first issue is wheel alighnment. He has got it in today for one. once we get the results we can let loose again with out thoughts..:)

Wrap the spings in cling wrap then fill with cement.. no body roll then..:)


How about we all take a chill pill. first issue is wheel alighnment. He has got it in today for one. once we get the results we can let loose again with out thoughts..:)


LOL

Not a bad cheap idea - same ride quality as chopped springs bro :P

P.S Heaseman Steering - Love that place.....be sure to perve on the ferrari's that visit there :cool:

LOL

Not a bad cheap idea - same ride quality as chopped springs bro :P

P.S Heaseman Steering - Love that place.....be sure to perve on the ferrari's that visit there :cool:

yeah there was a GTB this morning. i want a RWD exotic.

Yeah lots of nice cars at Heasman....

Some nice muscle cars go there too, posrche's, ferrari's, saw a lambo there before aswell...

They have quite a nice VT wagon dumped on 20's and two tone last time I checked :cool:

ERS,
just go on the whiteline site and read their technical articles about FWD car handling characteristics and how to make improvements.

Trust me.
Adding a rear sway bar to a FWD car makes an amazing improvement.

I did this about 8 years ago to a Verada touring wagon.
1, front tyre wear was much reduced.
2, chuckability improved out of sight. Going through a mini roundabout I could go 10 to 15 k's faster. Reducing the roll at the rear feeds through to the front.

Some of you people seem to know what your talking about. Is anyone in the trade or competent enough,to make up a wheel alignment sheet for factory specs and maybe one for a more spirited driving setup.It would be bloody handy to just check our alignment print offs against.Have it as a sticky.

Some of you people seem to know what your talking about. Is anyone in the trade or competent enough,to make up a wheel alignment sheet for factory specs and maybe one for a more spirited driving setup.It would be bloody handy to just check our alignment print offs against.Have it as a sticky.

Each car is different though in minor adjustments, they take into consideration (well they should) your weight, whether you cart lots of crap around in the car, regularly have passengers in the car, type/size of tyre, suspension setup etc.

i still say just get k-sport coil overs, they have pillowball top mounts and 36 dampening levels, once you driven a car with them you will never go back

IMO the k-sport coilovers aren't a bad thing for the money, but I can't help but laugh at "36 dampening levels".

IMO adjustability in all but the high-end motorsport-level shocks is pretty useless..it tends to be very non-linear, varies between individual shocks (so you cant just set both shocks to the same setting and expect them to do be doing the same thing), lots of cross talk (i.e a rebound knob will adjust bump as well, or if they are combined to one knob they don't adjust together and change different amounts with each click).

Basically if the shocks aren't on a shock dyno, you can't teally tell what it's doing, and you will rarely be able to get the right levels from tuning it "by feel", especially since what feels "good" intuitively isn't necessarily right.

E.g alot of people buy koni yellows and max out the rebound at the track, because it feels "firm" and therefore "good". What they are actually doing is overpowering the spring with too much rebound, which gives ****house handling - which each bump/weight transfer event, the return from travel is slowed down too much, or even to the point that thee springs are partially compressed when the car is stationary.

This is why I ended up deciding to go with a non-adjustable Bilstein damper. If the dampers are of good quality and are valved correctly to begin with, there shouldn't be any need to adjust them at all, as they will be working beautifully as is. IMO unless you really know what you are doing and the adjustability works properly, having adjustabilty on dampers is just adding more variables you can get wrong.

makes sense.

would of thought 1000 dollar coil overs would be more consistent than that?

would your bilsteins a lot better than koni oranges?

ERS,
just go on the whiteline site and read their technical articles about FWD car handling characteristics and how to make improvements.

Trust me.
Adding a rear sway bar to a FWD car makes an amazing improvement.

I did this about 8 years ago to a Verada touring wagon.
1, front tyre wear was much reduced.
2, chuckability improved out of sight. Going through a mini roundabout I could go 10 to 15 k's faster. Reducing the roll at the rear feeds through to the front.

I never said it doesnt improve handling.

It reduces understeer, and reduces power understeer, and reduces body roll.

All of which improve tyre wear.

It doesnt prevent weight transfer rear to front when entering a corner.

makes sense.

would of thought 1000 dollar coil overs would be more consistent than that?

would your bilsteins a lot better than koni oranges?

Just takl to heasman steering - tell them your budget, and ask whats the best thing to do.

got the car back.

wheel alignment.
rotate and balance.

and they suggested that they increase the negative camber, by elongating the top strut hole to allow for camber.

at the moment it is at 1 negative degree.

feels better.

however because they don't have a digital aligner, there is no print out and we will probably never know if the toe was out.
which is a little disappointing...