Alignment question (long and involved)

[DanDombrowski]

Ok, some background first.

I had a tire blowout about a year ago on the interstate. Got 2 new rear tires, have had a vibration since then, even though they've been rebalanced twice. Its in the seat, not the steering wheel (indicating a rear wheel problem), so I've assumed that I bent a rim when I had the blowout. Sucks, but not much I can do.

So the vibrations been getting worse lately. I figured that either it has become unbalanced + bent from before, and thats why its worse. Decided to confirm it was the right rear and put the spare tire on to see if it goes away.

I pulled the original tire off the car, and found the inside edge to be completely gone. This is a tire that is less than a year old. Checked the left side, it was almost as bad, but not quite.

Here is a picture of the right rear tire.



So here are my questions:

Can you have a rear suspension alignment in this car? I didn't think you could, but I've been told so many things about alignments I don't know what to believe.

If the answer is no, are there any suspension components that immediately come to mind when you see this? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking dog bones, but not sure.

Basically, my plan is to go into Sears where I got the tires and ask for a rebalance. They will obviously notice that the rear tires are balding on the inside. Now, when I had the tires put on, I got a "free alignment check". Of course, I'm sure they didn't look at it, because I never got a printout or anything. They just said "its fine". At the time, I didn't really care, because it felt fine.

Now, I know well enough that Sears will claim "I have bad alignment, its not their fault, I need to buy new tires".

Help me prepare my argument to convince them that they should replace the tires under warranty. Its been less than a year, they supposedly checked the alignment when I had it in, and I got the road hazard warranty.

Should I replace the dog bones in the rear so they don't try to claim I have a worn suspension?

Thanks for the help everyone!

[diamond777]

as far as i know you can get a 4-wheel alignment and you should also check for worn or bent parts in the rear gl

[632 Regal]

nope, no such thing as a 4 wheel alignment on the E34. Is your car lowered, if so this adds to the rear inner tire wear, this is normal but if lowered it gets worse.

Putting new looking parts on the rear will void your warrantee which is road hazard, dont drive over any large parts at low speed to ruin the belts requiring a replacement under their warrantee

If there are worn parts in the rear it can add to inner tire wear, I rotate front to rear as the fronts wear on the outsides normally.

How many miles on them tires? if you put about 20-30k that wear would be normal even on a brand new E34.

Hope this helps.

as far as i know you can get a 4-wheel alignment and you should also check for worn or bent parts in the rear gl

[632 Regal]

Ohhh I believe the M5 has different arms for the rear, its a difft part number and is in a lowered E34, might be food for thought.

[ryan roopnarine]

i'm not bill r, and i'm too young to know that much about RWD, but i find that every "in the seat only" problem on my car turns out to be the driveshaft. you didn't say whether or not the problem went away, and ill be cloistered away studying for the math GRE for the next couple days (i'm not supposta be on teh intarweb right now ) but ill probably pop back in tomorrow morning to do some "serious math business" (involving this website) on the computer. i'd put my hand on the driveshaft tunnel and confirm that the vibration ISN"T coming from there. i used to drive about 1k/week in this car, now its down to around 500 mi or so, but even then, if a cheap set of chineese tires did that on the back wheels in 1 years time, i'd know it was because of major part deficiencies there. maybe i'm a p#ssy, but i would rather go after them for some pro-rating towards new tires, because i know that the situation wasn't entirely their fault (yes, i know you said that they told you it was ok, but that amount of wear in 1 year is due to some significant mechanical deficiencies in the car). i would be happy with a situation where they prorated me on the mileage the car had when it came in for the new tire, telling them that they weren't entirely blameless for that. perhaps you take it in initially, negotiate with them, and if their terms aren't amicable, you practice as much warranty fraud as you want/are willing to and take to another sears a tire that's too shredded for them to interpret.

[DanDombrowski]

Ryan,

Thanks for the advice. I pretty much knew going in that the best I was going to get for warranty replacement was pro-rating, and thats fine with me.

If I were in their shoes, and I looked at that tire, I would immediately say "alignment problem". I highly doubt that the tires would wear that unevenly just based on design, so I agree with you there. I'm just trying to narrow it down to weather or not its an alignment problem or suspension wear problem, or both. I realize its not really their fault, but I would like to devoid them of being able to take the argument that my alignment is completely to blame and thus weaseling out of any kind of refund, even partial.

So according to Jeff N, there is no rear alignment changes on this car. Is that the consensus? Anywhere I could reference that I could back up that fact?

I'm guessing that if you can't adjust the alignment in the rears, then I've worn out some suspension bushings, either dogbones, rtabs, or something else? Any idea?

I guess my plan is to drop the car off on Monday and see what they say. No replacement though, and mabye I'll just run the tires in the same config until they wear through, or swap sides and do some donuts in the parking lot.....

I wish I had time to take the car in and see what they will do, but I am absolutely booked until next Monday. I'm driving the Volvo today (have to pick up a boat trailer), and tomorrow we're headed to Tampa for the Honda Grand Prix for the weekend.

[DanDombrowski]

Gah! No, it doesnt!

I mean, it does, thank you Jeff. What I meant was that it does not help that 20-30k miles is normal...

You're right, they do tend to wear on the outsides on the front, so I suppose a rotation might have helped that. But I've only had them for about 13k miles!

Oh, and the car is not lowered. I don't think I could intentionally damage the tire, but its not a bad thought.

I thought there was no service interval for tire rotation on E34s? Not like that matters, the tire people at Sears are slightly more intelligent than Koko the gorilla. Gotta rotate the tires.........gotta rotate the tires.......thats all they say.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

out there, that is supposed to fix the rear.

I thought your not supposed to rotate the tires on a BMW, they just want you to let wear inside rear/outside front.

[DanDombrowski]

Thats what I thought too. Unfortuantely, trying to tell that to a tire store is like talking to a broken record. They insist you have to rotate them. Doesn't matter if the car is a toyota, ford, BMW, staggered wheels...they insist you rotate them, and if you don't, then thats the cause of all problems.

[632 Regal]

BMW's reccomendation is to NOT rotate them but it adds up to replacing the rears 2:1.

Back to the point of the vibration, its a bent rim (doubtful) or more likely an out of round tire, they can balance an egg but on the road you will feel it, I went through this with Discunt tire for over a year and 14 visits... usually felt at about 70 mph and above for an egg and below 20 mph.

You could try to say that the vibration you complained about caused the unusual wear? Tires cost them about 20 bux each so you have a lot of leverage as long as there are a bunch of people in the waiting room.

and people think all i do is post whore...

Thats what I thought too. Unfortuantely, trying to tell that to a tire store is like talking to a broken record. They insist you have to rotate them. Doesn't matter if the car is a toyota, ford, BMW, staggered wheels...they insist you rotate them, and if you don't, then thats the cause of all problems.