mosaix

I have 3 years old c230 with 26K miles on it.
Front tires (original Michelin Pilot Primacy) look new on the main thread surface, but the outside corners are completely bald. I checked alignment twice within these 3 years, last time - a couple of weeks ago. Everything is within specs.

Is w203 known for uneven front tire wear or something seems to be wrong with my car and/or tires?

glocati

Mine are the same, and i am good on alignment as well. I think the W203 is prone to outer tire wear in the front. Maybe I pitch it into the corners too fast.

PharmD

What do you keep the tires inflated to? Stock suspension?

FrankW

it's caused by the aggressive caster and the tendency to understeer of the W203 and toe-in. nothing you can do there. you can solve it be lowering the car...a lot. more negative camber will help.

Glyn M Ruck

Drive more carefully or this is normal. Rotate tyres to rear before this happens or are you staggered?

samaritrey

He should be able to rotate since he is on stock tires i assume he has not changed rims or anything. i wish my front would wear more. i forgot to rotate tires and then looked about two mouths ago and my rears are like so close to markers but the fronts look new. lol and i don't do anything stupid like burnouts i just drive hard. i did get 35,000 out of the rears so far but will need new ones before winter.

mosaix

I wish I could rotate front/rear, but stock rims/tires are different - 225/45/17 front and 245/40/17 rear.

The car is driven by my wife and she is not aggressive driver at all.

Rears become bald and were replaced at about 15K. So, may be my wife does drive aggressively when I don't see her

FrankW

rotate what? 245 rear tires to the front and 225 front to the rear?

samaritrey

well my tires are 225 all around so i could have rotated them. i didn't realize that the c230 had a staggered setup that sucks for tire longevity.
and dam 15k on rears that seems a little extreme because a friend of mine has the stock tires on his 2006 c230 and he has at least 24000 and they don't look that bad.

XenonBenz

It sounds like the tire pressure could be the culprit. I personally use 30 front, 32 rear when they are cold. When tires are warm, you should compensate by about 4psi, so 34 front, and 36 rear. I don't have any uneven wear problems at all with these pressures.

Also, if you have directional tire treads, then you cannot rotate at all. If they are not directional, the only thing you can do is to rotate front left with front right, then rear left with rear right, but you will still have the extreme wear on the outsides of your tires. One solution to this problem is to have the tires unmounted and then remounted on the other side. By doing this, you will be moving the worn part of the tire from the outside of the tire to the inside and should be able to get more life out of the tire.

hanknum

Yeah, I think the outer edge wear is a common problem. My ex-W124 500E had that problem too, in addition to my '02 C320.

Greg, yours still wears like that after you lowered it? I would think that lowering it would give you enough/more negative camber to compensate.

glocati

Henry, you are right. Upon further inspection, i am getting pretty even wear across the tire. The design of my tires ( Falkens) is such that they have a very sloped/non-broad shoulder design so it appears the outer/inner edge is more worn than it actually is. Now the rears are a different story.....

LILBENZ230

Okay my car doesn't suffer this outer tire wear. I have 19,000 miles on the set of Kumho Ecsta ASXs on my C230. Rears are at about 20% life left. Expected the fronts to fare better but alas are only about 40% left.

Tires on mine are wearing nice and even.

TemjinX2

i would go with franks suggestion and see if you can increase the camber. it should reduce outer wear assuming your toe is aligned correctly.

e1000

what pressure are you running? I still say the recommended tire pressure on the door jam is a pile of crap and the Sport Sedans need at least 34 PSI, maybe more.

pickupjason

I have the same issue with wife's 04.5 c230..BONE stock
mostly local drive and stop and go traffic for 20 miles a day

in the past 5 years, I have went through the following sets of tire:
1. OEM tire Michelin -22k
right front tire edge wore to "BOLD" condition, rears are even wear to wear bar
2. Yokohama es100 - 16k
right front tire edge wore to "BOLD" condition, rears are even wear to wear bar
3. falken f452 - 9k
both front tire edge wore to "BOLD" condition, rears are even wear to wear bar
4. now I just put in yokohama s drive and went to dealer for an alignment for 70 bucks, with 50% off coupon. The work order didn't say anything about the readings and I have to ask for the alignment printout. the service advisor said they don't give the printout for customer but he did show me the print out. The only things are not within spec are toe in front tires and all others are fine. Not sure if this will stop my wife's car chewing tires like it did before.

Jason

mleskovar

What a crock...you paid for the alignment and deserve the printout. Something isn't right here. If he wants to keep it demand that he make a copy for himself.

Glyn M Ruck

Damn right!

If your alignment is correct & your castor bushes are not buggered then shoulder wear is due to driving & pressure.

I run 225/50/16 all round & suffer no undue shoulder wear. I run 2.1 bar all round which is 30.45 psi. I rotate corner to corner every 10,000 Km to prevent feathering & noise. With staggered you can only rotate across the same axle if you have non directional tyres. The Pilot Primacy is not Michelin's best effort but they do generally last well. If your rears were bald at 15,000 miles that car is being driven enthusiastically!

Make sure your castor is set 1 degree more positive on the RHS than LHS - typically 10.6 & 9.6

snail45

15,000 on the rears sounds about right to me. I still have the stock Michelins with just under 13,000 miles and the rears are getting close to the wear bands.
As far as the fronts, I have never had problems with the outside wearing. I do have cupping starting to happen on the inside due to lowering the car and not having an alignment though.
I run 33 psi.

LILBENZ230

As an update to my previous post here about this problem not affecting my C230.. let me withdraw that. My tires are now at 26,000 miles and both fronts have shoulder wear pretty bad. But I do drive back roads a great deal and enthusiastically at that.

hanknum

Does anyone know if more caster angle can be adjusted into the the front suspension? I would like to get the steering wheel to self center more as well as get a little better "road feel".

Glyn M Ruck

Yes you can adjust more castor into the suspension. First step is to dial in 1 degree more castor on the RHS than left to make the car track straight. Typically 10.6 deg RHS 9.6 deg LHS as I said below. Going out of spec with castor takes you into unknown territory. You will have to go by trial & error & monitor tyre wear. Remember that changing castor angles pulls camber as well in a turn so you will have to check this. 3 way fluted castor & camber bolts give you some latitude - see sticky & search for diagrams.

tasmit99

I'm not going to read every post here but incase it hasn't been suggested I would check my front struts. Bad struts can cause this kind of tire wear.

Glyn M Ruck

Bad struts will cause huge cup wear in the tread. Not shoulder wear.

hanknum

That's what I thought.

The tire wear that I'm getting is the 1" outer edge. I've already lowered the front about 1.7" (thus inducing more negative camber, or less positive), but it doesn't seem to be making much difference. As Frank W. had mentioned on another thread, once they start to wear a certain way, they will usually continue to wear that way. I know that increasing the caster will also induce more negative camber when turning. I've just tried reducing the toe in a bit and will see how that affects it, but I'm not seeing any "feathering" of the tread.