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Who has been affected by early inner tire wear on their car? I remember reading about it but can't seem to find it anymore. What was the remedy? Changing the bushings to stiffer RC F Bushings and adjusting wheel alignment right?
Who has been affected by early inner tire wear on their car? I remember reading about it but can't seem to find it anymore. What was the remedy? Changing the bushings to stiffer RC F Bushings and adjusting wheel alignment right?
The alignment isn't the root cause of the issue. Going to firmer bushings like those on the F should mitigate the inner wear.
Oh okay, does alignment need to be adjusted in conjunction with replacing the bushings? What specs should alignment be set to?
Well "It depends" would be the best answer. You could do an alignment after installing the bushings, sure. I'd just keep the factory specs for alignment unless you have specific wants/needs.
Well "It depends" would be the best answer. You could do an alignment after installing the bushings, sure. I'd just keep the factory specs for alignment unless you have specific wants/needs.
I've said this years ago on other forums and on here. Pay close attention:
The inherent design of cars in this class and up calls for suspension design that leads to accelerated wear in general and specifically accelerated inner tire wear. The Lexus IS just happens to be tuned more towards the extreme side of this "class spectrum." In layman's terms, Lexus baked in more compliance than on other offerings within their brand portfolio, and more so than other brands.
Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, etc. all experience similar wear and all have lodged complaints on forums.
The takeaway here is that you can't eliminate it all. And you don't want to. This isn't a Corolla. You have to pay to play.
I have attached a photo on a BMW exhibiting the same characteristic. I had previous BMWs that did the same thing. BMWs tend to do it more on the rear as their rear trailing arm bushing is tuned for a ton of dynamic toe (part of BMW's secret to their famous handling). It's what has given BMW extreme stability under braking from high speeds. Remember the magazines growing up as a kid that praised BMW handling?
BMW invented this suspension philosophy. They pioneered the class. A bit of learning material for you guys from E46CT.
And one more thing... don't see it as necessarily a bad thing, but a good thing. The thing that causes that inner wear is the very thing that makes your Lexus so stable under high speed handling maneuvers. It's done on purpose. The best thing to do is mitigate with slightly stiffer F bushings. If you mitigate with really stuff bushings, you won't get nearly as bad as wear, but you'll introduce plenty of other handling-related problems. Can't have it all. No free rides.
The word is out whether the RCF bushings work. I'd be surprised if it eliminated the problem entirely but am hoping it reduces it so I can get a little better tire life. The bushings don't change how the car feels by much. A little more road feedback maybe. Time will tell when more forum members have driven it awhile to see if the inside tire wear persists.
Instead of 15k, you might get 20k. At which point you'd be replacing tires on such a car in this class anyway if you drive it how it's meant w/ summer rubber =) I found with my BMWs w/ stiffer bushings (a la RCF bushings) i would get 20k a set out of my Michelin Pilot Super Sports. Par for the course.
New rubber is good anyway. Your tires last too long and you start dry rotting. Then you risk blowouts and just overall sloppy traction.
I will say that I recently checked my tires after the Missouri cruise I posted a thread about. With about 7,000 miles on this set of tires, I'm not seeing significant inner wear. That is, without measuring it with a tread depth gauge (which I don't have...) I can't seem to tell whether it's happening or not. I do still have the slight toe-in the dealer service tech recommended. It might actually be helping.
Instead of 15k, you might get 20k. At which point you'd be replacing tires on such a car in this class anyway if you drive it how it's meant w/ summer rubber =) I found with my BMWs w/ stiffer bushings (a la RCF bushings) i would get 20k a set out of my Michelin Pilot Super Sports. Par for the course.
New rubber is good anyway. Your tires last too long and you start dry rotting. Then you risk blowouts and just overall sloppy traction.
I was getting 10K out of my fronts. I'm hoping to extend that.
I was getting 10K out of my fronts. I'm hoping to extend that.
i installed the RCF/GSF bushings 6 months ago.
i put about 10,000km on my winter tires which I bought new day after I installed bushings and the inner tire wear problem is basically eliminated. *SLIGHTLY* more NVH (noise,vibration & harshness) but overall car feels better and tires are not wearing unevenly.
the upgrade cost me around $200 parts and labor.
i installed the RCF/GSF bushings 6 months ago.
i put about 10,000km on my winter tires which I bought new day after I installed bushings and the inner tire wear problem is basically eliminated. *SLIGHTLY* more NVH (noise,vibration & harshness) but overall car feels better and tires are not wearing unevenly.
the upgrade cost me around $200 parts and labor.
That's awesome to hear. I installed last week and I barely notice anything is different. Other than the tire and brake eating, this car has been a great pleasure to own.
Glad to hear switching to RC F bushings has been good for those who have done it. Anyone else have experience with RC F bushings? How many miles do the tires last? How many hours of labor does Lexus charge for changing four bushings?
04-23-19, 10:39 AM
3IS Inner Tire Wear
You could do an alignment after installing the bushings, sure. I'd just keep the factory specs for alignment unless you have specific wants/needs.
