Uneven tire wear - PS4S inner side

[geekatthewheel]

Hi all, I hope everyone is doing well.

I recently took my FL5 in for service and found that my brake pads are cooked. Additionally, the mechanic mentioned that my front Michelin Pilot Sport 4S (PS4S) tires need replacing due to inner-edge cracking (see attached pictures).

For a bit of background, I did one very hot track day in 2023, and since then, I have only used the car for summer road trips and commuting. I don't drive calmly, but I wouldn't say I drive like a maniac, either. The car has just over 14,000 miles. I did the steering recall last year.

The mechanic suggested that these vehicles tend to wear tires in this specific pattern, possibly due to the camber settings—I’ve seen a similar thread on the FK8 forum regarding this. As for the brake pads, they likely suffered from that track day, compounded by the brake-based torque vectoring.
I have a few questions and would appreciate your input:

• Tire Wear: Have you experienced this same wear pattern? It feels a bit premature to replace the tires when there is still plenty of tread left, but I know it's the safer choice.
• Rotation: Do you rotate your front and rear tires? If so, how often?
• Brake Pads: I know the ideal solution is to swap to dedicated track pads and switch back to OEM for daily driving. However, are there any alternatives to the OEM Brembo pads that offer a better balance of performance and durability for a "fast road" setup?

Thank you all for your help!

 

[optronix]

Yep.

I would say if the car was not tracked at all then this is abnormal, but all it takes is one good track day to accelerate the wear on tires and brakes by an ungodly amount.

My Michelins didn't make it ~8k miles. One half track day but a few dozen autocross runs.

The rear brakes go very quickly too. I just did mine at 23k miles, but I turn off VSA via pedal dance every single time I do any aggressive driving at all. Honestly I could have gotten another couple thousand miles out of them with gentle driving but I want to do another track day so didn't want to push my luck.

As for mitigating this, the only genuine solution is to not drive hard. That makes zero sense with this car, so just budget for tires much more frequently. And yes absolutely rotate. Personally I have now 3 sets of wheels and tires, but I need a set of all seasons for the winter months, and I kept a set of Apex 19" wheels specifically so I could keep using the OEM PS4S for street summers because you can get them for extremely cheap and there isn't a better street tire available for this platform IMHO. I also have a set of 18s for track use, with Bridgestone RE-71RZ. My cadence for rotating the track tires is every 2 autocross events, and then side-to-side after every 4. That seems to be working pretty well. For street driving, probably every 5k miles or so, but I drive like a grandpa on the street most of the time. Occasional fun backroads jaunts but not aggressive to the point of screaming tires on the street.

FWIW I also have far more camber than OEM (-3.5 front, -2.5 rear), but the Continental DWS06 all seasons I've been using have at least 8-10k miles on them and they still look brand new. I drive even more gently with the all seasons on, because frankly they're not fun to drive hard on anyway.

 

[ModJPB]

Hard to tell from pictures alone. If you can post the tread depth readings at each of the four main tire channels, the alignment readings and your cold tire pressures, I can tell you exactly what's happening and how to fix it.

The following may not be accurate, because based on pictures alone. It appears the tire is semi even across except at the extreme inner edge, which means your front toe is to far outward. Also appears the center tread has slightly more rubber than both sides which means the tires have been run slightly under inflated.

Tire rotations used to be recommended at every other oil change about 7k miles. Now that oil change intervals have doubled in length, recommend every oil change, unless you do yours early.

If alignment, pressure, and rotations are fixed, you should expect about 30k miles on these. On a performance tire, on a performance car is normal.

 

[AZCWTypeR]

From my experience, adding negative camber tends to wear the inner edges on the drive tires. Not sure if this is your situation, but I reverted back to stock alignment settings.

 

[Xmetal]

The following may not be accurate, because based on pictures alone. It appears the tire is semi even across except at the extreme inner edge, which means your front toe is to far inward. Also appears the center tread has slightly more rubber than both sides which means the tires have been run slightly under inflated.

It's toe-OUT that wears the inner edge. Toe IN would wear the outer edge.

From my experience, adding negative camber tends to wear the inner edges on the drive tires. Not sure if this is your situation, but I reverted back to stock alignment settings.

People often associate negative camber with inner edge wear as that's the most obvious visually. However, often overlooked is toe settings. Just a smidge toe out with 0 camber will eat through the inner edge faster than a -3 degree camber with proper toe alignment. One of my current car (not the CTR) have -2.5 camber and the tires are wearing evenly. It's a balancing game. Too much toe-out will make the car lively and dart around. Too much toe-in will make the car feel dead and plows.

 

[Evox787]

I can tell you that’s probably normal because the same thing happened to me. Mine were at 7/32 after 2 years and about 30,000 miles. I rotated the tires every 5,000 miles when changing the oil and constantly checked the tire pressure. I tried to upload the other two tire photos, but the website wouldn’t let me. Anyway, in my opinion, it’s the aggressive track alignment that comes from the factory.

I installed new tires and wheels, staying within the OEM specs except for the offset: 19x9.5 +50 with 265/30/19 Continental DSW. Now, I’m working on getting the parts I need for a more conservative daily-use alignment. I lowered my car with H&R springs, and based on the info I had, I didn’t think I needed any additional parts, but that information turned out to be off. My car ended up around -1.9 degrees in the front and -2.3 degrees in the rear. Now, I’ll add toe arms to get the desired camber and rear toe settings. I’m aiming for 0 degrees front toe and 0.04 degrees per side in the rear, instead of 0.06.

If you plan to lower your car, be prepared to spend more than just on the springs if it’s your primary vehicle. For brake pads, I went with Akebono 1001 in the front and 1878 in the rear because I hate cleaning the wheels so often with the OEM Brembos. I changed mine at 15,000 miles because the rears were almost gone and wearing unevenly.

I also installed the copper bushings from Wunderlanden and plan to install the PRL rigid collars to help center the subframes. This should get me closer to about -1.5 degrees all around in combination with the toe arms.

 

[J_D]

I’ve been hammering the OEM tires on 6 track days at a beginner pace and they aren’t cooked yet. I suspect a bad alignment more than anything here.

I would advise you to measure the front pad depth as well before trusting the dealer

 

[CG13]

Recommendations:

- Watch your tire pressure to ensure you don’t roll over the shoulders of the PS4S if you’re doing track driving.
- Add ball joints to adjust front camber if you’re going to do track days.
- Paragon and others make replacement pads that are far better than OEM for occasional track use
- yes -rotate

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