redgs4

...at least with my car. I have a 98 GS with Tein HA lowered beyond the stock suspensions ability to align. I just had the new GoodYear GSD3's mounted, balanced and installed and the car aligned. I'll post some feedback on the new tires in a different thread after I have had some runtime.

Back to the S03's... I could not easily see this while the tires were mounted, but there was cupping along the inside front tires. My car was running the usual negative camber along with some positive toe [toe out] which caused the cupping. This unual wear is what was causing all the noise. The rear tires still had some tread but were well worn [too many hard launches]. I could not find any sign of tread separation or cracking around the treads. I took a several pictures which I will post later -- the uneven wear is clearly visible, the front tires look like polygons.

I jumped on the bash S03 bandwagon complaining about all the noise. Not justified in this case. I wish I could go back and take a closer look at the Yoko AVS Sports I had on previously to see if they had the same wear issues.

ligflava

interesting post. i used to think that cupping on the inner part of the tread was caused primarily by worn shocks.

thanks for the info!

FutureGS400

I like my GSD3s so far-glad I finally got a GOOD alignment done soon after installing them. My car is 1.5" lower and although the neg. camber was a bit out (no surprise) what DID surprise me was that my rears wear substantially "toed out"! The fronts were slightly, but not as much as the rears. We brought the camber in as much as the stock adjustments would allow (got it pretty close to spec) and set the toe properly. Wow, what a difference! The car tracks much better and should really help minimize tire wear too.
I'm convinced that-based on personal experience-often premature tire wear is due to combined factors such as negative camber and toe out condition.