Normal tire wear or alignment issue?

[Rus]

Hello everyone,

I've just noticed that all of my tires show a strange wear pattern that I haven't seen before. As you can see in the pictures below, the thread shoulder on the inner side of the tire is worn at an angle uniformly around the circumference. The thread depth doesn't appear to change over the width of the tire. The tires have about 3000 miles on them and are Yokohama YK520 tires on regular E34 basketweaves. Since all of the tires show this kind of wear, is it an alignment issue? This wear would normally be seen with excessive toe-out or excessive camber. The car is not lowered, so camber doesn't seem to be an option. The Owner's Manual mentions that tires shouldn't be rotated front to back due to the unique wear pattern. Am I observing the regular wear pattern then?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Pictures:



Edit: I have not observed any pulling while driving. On a smooth level road the car will continue traveling straight with hands off of the wheel.

[attack eagle]

well if it isn't lowered it should still have 2.5 degrees of negative camber... that's a fair amount.

I can barely see what you are talking about... but I'd have the alignment checked.

[Rus]

well if it isn't lowered it should still have 2.5 degrees of negative camber... that's a fair amount.

I can barely see what you are talking about... but I'd have the alignment checked.

I've edited one of the pictures in the original post to show the area of concern more clearly. I'll try to have the alignment checked as soon as possible, but would like to know if this would be considered a severe issue.

[Ross]

All four are like that?
Run your hand over the tread to see if you can feel the tread "feathered".
Lots of E34s do that to the fronts. If your rears are that way too I'd say your suspension is sagging causing the camber.

[ThoreauHD]

My car has a slight negative camber, as it was designed to, so I have a similar wear pattern. It's supposed to be / \ at an angle so that around turns the tire has full contact with the ground. I actually don't see alot of odd wear on that tire, but I'm not a mechanic so that doesn't mean much. I think you may be obsessing over nothing.

[Rus]

Ross,

I've checked for feathering and there is none present. No cupping either. I do remember my old tires showing some feathering on the front ones...but that was on the outside edge of the thread.

Thoreau,

You may be right, I am a bit obsessive-compulsive with cars. What got me worried is that the car hasn't had an alignment for about two years and I've done front upper control arms and rear dog-bones over that time span. Seeing this strange wear on brand new tires set off a few alarms. I hope you are right and its nothing to worry about (but I still found a local german auto shop that should be able to check the alignment as per BMW specs).

[DanDombrowski]

Rus,

You never said - are these front or rear tires?

I'm not an expert on the fronts, but I have had some experience with the rears.

Theres no adjustment for the rear tires, so if you're getting excessive toe/camber or inner tire wear on the rear and its not lowered - the only thing it can be is either the RTABs or a sagging suspension (which I guess is involuntary lowering).

I would not be concerned with that kind of tire wear on the car. If its wearing odd, its not that bad. THIS is bad camber -

[Rus]

Rus,

You never said - are these front or rear tires?

I'm not an expert on the fronts, but I have had some experience with the rears.

Theres no adjustment for the rear tires, so if you're getting excessive toe/camber or inner tire wear on the rear and its not lowered - the only thing it can be is either the RTABs or a sagging suspension (which I guess is involuntary lowering).

I would not be concerned with that kind of tire wear on the car. If its wearing odd, its not that bad. THIS is bad camber -

The tire in the photo is the left rear. Both of the front tires have the exact same wear pattern too. I was also under the impression that rear toe can be adjusted. Is that not the case?

[Tiger]

That's definitely alignment issue.

[DanDombrowski]

From my experience, the right rear usually shows the worst symptoms, but the cars factory camber will contribute to this, so like I said, it may be normal.

There is no adjustment for the camber or toe in the rear- the only things that affect the camber and toe are the ride height and the RTABs, unless you get the adjustable bushings.