I have a 2014 Patriot. I swapped my all-season tires for my snow tires and discovered the front tires (both) are wearing badly on the inner half. The right tire has worn way more than the left, and it is bald on that edge. I had an alignment done in May 2015 at 25,000 km after I had put on my all-season tires (that was done in April). Since then, I forgot to get a rotation done (and perhaps they would have seen the issue sooner). I brought the car in today to get looked at (Dec 17) but they found nothing wrong. They even did an alignment check and everything is within specs. I have no idea what’s wrong with it. I’m afraid my snow tires are going to wear the same way. The service manager tried to tell me that my tires were wearing on the inner edge of the tire naturally due to turning my steering wheel. Any ideas?
You need to have the front end and its alignment checked by the best shop in your area, and not by the dealer who is clearly in a state of denial, as well as one of spouting ridiculous misinformation.
Find somebody with a modern alignment rack. Hunter and John Bean both make the state of the art stuff. The big change in alignment racks is how quick they are to set up now. They’re so quick that even local shops are offering free alignment checks as part of an oil change.
The cause of tires wearing on the inner edges is usually too much toe out or too much negative camber.
If you have a printout of the alignment you need to check both toe and camber specs and look for a minus sign or what have you. That would denote the negative
“You need to have the front end and its alignment checked by the best shop in your area, and not by the dealer who is clearly in a state of denial, as well as one of spouting ridiculous misinformation.”
+1 for VDCdriver since that service manager is clueless.
Be aware that many alignment specs call for a lot of camber (and have pretty loose toe specs!), so getting an alignment might not get the problem solved. I don’t know what the alignment specs are for a 2014 Jeep Patriot, but my experience is that any camber over 1° is an issue and any toe spec over 1/32" per side (1/16" total) is also an issue. (I can’t remember what that is in degrees, but it is usually half of what the tolerance is.)
Anyone know what the alignment specs are for this vehicle?
Sharp turns cause wear on the outer edges of the tires, not the inner edges. There’s nothing unusual about the wheels or tires, right? Same – or at least the exact same size – as the vehicle had when delivered new from the manufacturer? And no modifications have been made to the suspension system, like to lower or lift it?
Oirginal tires it came with new? Continental tires?
I had the same problem with OEM Continentals.
Alignment well within spec.
The wear was abrupt on the inner 1" of tread.
Wouldn’t you expect camber wear to be a gradual taper from one side to the other"
At 15k miles it was getting pretty bad, so I had the tires flipped over on the rims.
Figured I’d let the other edges wear down some.
What happened is the tires then wore down evenly, nothing special on the “new” inside edges.
The tires were replaced at 25k when they reached 4/32".
The current Yokohamas are about 1/2 worn and even across after 25k.
And, yes, I do rotations.
And yet I use Continental tires on my bicycle and they’re excellent.
From what I can find the preferred camber setting on the front varies a bit by wheel size but it’s not enough of a difference to mean squat.
The preferred setting is shown as -70 or -80; all depending upon wheel diameter.
The OP needs to compare printout numbers with that as a first step and also compare the toe reading. Toe is shown to be +.20 preferred on total toe.
GeorgeSanJose said: "… Sharp turns cause wear on the outer edges of the tires, not the inner edges. … "
Not exactly.
Some suspensions have a large camber curve and that causes the inner tire (relative to the turning direction) to ride on the inner tread edge, causing inner tire wear. If you add in too much Ackermann, the inner tire wear is faster. Capri’s are one of those vehicles - and the way to control that is with stiffer sway bars, which makes the ride more uncomfortable. (also, changing the tie rod angle, to fix the Ackermann)
Interesting post CapriRacer … to be more precise I should have said the outer edges of the outer tires could be expected to wear faster – relative to the turning direction – due to the weight of the car getting thrown to the outer tire in a turn. But it sounds like even the inner tire of the turn can abnormally wear like that on its inside edge w/certain suspension designs.
On my 40+ year old Ford truck I get a little abnormal wear on the outside edges of the front tires, which I’ve always presumed to be due to the high center of gravity combined with perhaps some inadequacies in the suspension design.
While not related to this particular vehicle I might add something for those who think that cars on the assembly line end up on an alignment rack before they’re shipped. They don’t. It’s strictly a jig and prayer.
About 2 years ago there was a show on TV one night (Modern Marvels???) showing the factory where they build the new generation of Camaros.
At one point in the process with a complete painted body rolling down the line reference was made to a number of datum points being checked by lasers.
The narrator stated that if the chassis was more than .030 out of whack the body was shunted aside for a redo. Under .030 rolls on…
I don’t know about anyone else but .030 is a lot in my opinion. If they had said .003 I could see that but .030 could easily translate to alignment issues.
I don’t know what types of 4 wheel drive systems they have available on Patriots, but if one of them is a part time 4 wheel drive and you have it locked in, on dry roads, that will chew up the front tires.
First, old Ford trucks had twin I beam suspensions and no ackerman. That combination always results in outside tire wear.
Nowadays, most cars have too much camber for good tire wear (but it handles good!), and they didn’t upgrade the toe specs - and the result is inside tire wear. (not always, but the toe setting is really, really critical.)
Plus Jeeps tend to have a lot of caster, which results in large camber when the vehicle turns - which would also result in inside tire wear.