Wheel Alignment

Dave,

I noticed the same thing. FYI, I've got the same vehicle on the stock tyres and ~8000k's on the clock. Was gonna let Nissan suss it out when I get the chance.

F.

Dave, the wear pattern you mention is normal pattern for the GU. Only toe-in -toe-out is adjustable on live axle front end, which will do nothing for that wear pattern. To counter this you must regularly rotate wheels NO MORE THAN 10,000Km between rotations. And, to retify that wear, you have to CROSS-ROTATE wheels, which goes against the grain of most tyre fitters. However, it has to be tried. If you have severe balance problems, or unusual deterioration of the tyres, then return them to their original positions and live with the problem. If you think about the wear pattern, changing the wheel to the other side of the vehicle, and therefore reversing it's direction of rotation, will even out the wear and regain life for your tyres. Cheers.
Desert.

I disagree with the suggestion that toe angles have no effect on wear patterns. I'm convinced that toe-in is the cause of outside-edge wear on the fronts. Having said this, toe-in helps increase directional stability and this slight uneven wear on front tyres is perhaps a trade off between tyre wear and directional stability. I would still get nissan to suss it out just to be sure the toe angle is within the acceptable range or have an adjustment be made.

F.

Took the Nissan into the local Bob Jane/Goodyear outlet today. Bloke in there [Wade] seemed interested in my problem and asked about my rotation pattern and the like. Had a look at the car and then I left it with him for a couple of hours. Another bloke [one who had done the car] had obviously been told the game story to the time as he knew what I had told the boss when I dropped it off.

Gave me a readout that suggested very little adjustment. Did say that the signs to him indicated an under inflation which may have some basis as I ran the tyres at 34PSI in the beginning and have now gone up to 38 all round.

For you techo's it ended up reading like this: -

Before
Left.............Right
Toe in/out -2................-2

Camber 0................-.2

Caster +6...............+6

After
.................Left..............Right

..................0...................0
..................0..................-.2
................+6..................+6

To be perfectly honest I don't know what it all means. The bloke has asjed me to bring it in for him to have a look in 3,000K's and he reckons he'll be able to tell if hes fixed it.

Cost $55 [and don't forget that includes the standard NW markup I expect]

We'll have to wait and see.

One thing he did say that I had never thought about though is that the problems have become more prevalent in the industry since the advent of the high numbers of roundabouts. Always clockwise and we always put enormous pressures on the left front.

Sorry............I couldn't get the table to look pretty. I tried

Dave B