Well definitely car manufacturers setup handling for safety for EVERYBODY. They dial out as much OVERSTEER as possible. They prefer the car to UNDERSTEER. This is because if a driver panics if the car is "sliding out", most are inexperienced to deal with it and don't know what to do. The first reaction most drivers would do is lift their foot off the gas pedal and hit the brake. This is a huge NO NO during an oversteering situation but if the car is understeering you will just come to a stop instead of spinning around.

Now the cars in the past that I setup up to drive like I was at the Nurburgring, I'd set EVERYONE up to oversteer. Some like a car to be setup neutrally but I like steering my car with the back end. (My first track car was a 91 Mustang)

I totally agree with you if you bought the car for performance and rather sacrifice tread life for performance. I was just hoping to find a happy medium. But for me tread life is more important since I absolutely don't "throw" the car around. I bought the car for TORQUE and the LOOKS. I love my 20" wheels on it (most here HATE 20" on the C). I am way too scared to fly around a corner and smack a pothole. 30 and 25 series tires don't help much for rim protection. . Also if I wanted it to handle well, I would've put VOLK TE37 18x8.5's on the front and 18x10's on the rear with the new Bridgestone Pole Positions! But 18's are so blah to me Also instead of HnR front springs and just OEM spring pads in the rear, it would be custom built Moton coilovers! But since my cars a stupid garage queen, I rather it be pretty.

 

My guess is that our car has a terrible balance and weight distribution for its suspension and that is one way to improve it. A 997 for example has better balance out of the box and an alignment compromise is then not needed.

I have to agree w PROPAIN though. Tire is just money...

 

I see your point. I think that when you are able to handle the oversteer properly, you should be able to play with the settings and find your favorite.

 

Actually more toe-in helps with inner edge wear if you have more negative camber. Picture a tire with toe out. It's gonna wear the inside edge. A tire with toe-in will wear the outside edge. Now picture negative camber. The tire primarily is riding on the inside edge when going in a straight line which will wear the inside edge. So to compensate for that and to have more even wear, you want some toe-in.

Every Porsche I have experienced the ones that are getting inside edge wear are guys who primarily drive on the freeway or drive their cars like a granma. The ones that bought the car because it's a freaking sports car and drive them like that, their tires are worn a lot more evenly across.

I am sure most of you understand that negative camber gives you better grip through turns and understand how it does. But those that don't, to make it short, as a tire goes through a turn the outside tire (the one with the most pressure on it), those tires will camber more "positive". So basically lets say your tires have ZERO camber. As that tire goes through a turn it will only be contacting the ground with the outer edge. They key here is if you want more cornering grip, you want the tires to start negative so you get MAXIMUM frontprint on the ground as you go through a turn. The downside to this is if you don't always drive the car hard around turns, or drive a lot on the freeway, your tires will wear out the inside edge first.

Lots of people with Porsches are always complaining about how the inside edges wears out first. The ones that do and don't understand why, I laugh because I know they didn't buy their car because it handles well but for the "status" instead.

 

It's all about driver skill. Most racers tend to agree that oversteering is way better than understeering. Even guys I run into at the track during HPDE days that don't have any understanding how a car is setup or suppose to drive and they tell me their cars is "pushing", I first make sure it's not them improperly driving and if it's not I will just mess with their air pressures to make the car more "loose" so it oversteers more. EVERYONE that I have done that too says their car is much faster around the track that way . In my book LOOSE is GOOD! Of course you can only do so much with air pressures...

 

FWIW
I got 20k out of my factory continentals in my C350
I hate to disagree but I think it is the torque coupled with a lighter rear end

 

Which Continentals?

Also the alignment specs are different for your car.

BTW I am not suggesting that part of the problem isn't the power. It obviously is.

 

Continental contiPro contact 245-40-17
All seasons

 

Do you realize that is a 60K mile tire?

I had the same tire on my C300. I took them off at 10K and they had apprx half tread left. So they would've also gone 20K. If you research tire manufacturers that have mileage warranty on tread life, you will notice that they are now only warranting only half the miles on cars with staggered tires. Basically the Cont. should've gone at least 30K.

Anyway thanks for sharing your info. It's telling me even more that the C itself has tire wear issues on the rear.

 

I do realize it is a 60k tire.
I suspect there is some element of micro wheel slip with each takeoff from the rwd set up. It would be interesting to see if the 4matics have this issue.
In any event, I took it as a "pay to play" situation and enjoyed the heck out of it.
Now I'm in an '11 ml 350 bluetec. It is also 4matic with 50-50 distribution of torque. So I'll see how these bridge tone runflats do

 

My C300 is a 4MATIC. I can promise you I don't spin the tires.

I guarantee you won't like how the 19" Bridgestones wear. Worst tire EVER...runflats in general suck.

 

I am definitely going to check on my toe setting when I get a chance but perhaps not with my new wheels on with fear the alignment equipment will scratch them, here is a clip from MotoIQ regarding toe settings, seriously wonder how the rear will behave with less toe-in



here is the link http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_artic...-your-toe.aspx

 

Every day I make the right hand turn to join the main road I know I spin the inside right rear wheel and I'm not flooring it. Then every day I leave work I make a left turn that causes the left rear wheel to spin a bit. Lots of torque on a lighter (than the other AMGs) car with no rear Diff will cause this.

To be honest had this been a non-AMG car, I'd be mighty upset, but I'm enjoying EVERY drive in this car so much that tire wear or fuel consumption are not as bad as they should seem. :-)

 

It's gotta be the toe-in setting.

I'll wait and see what improvement a less aggressive alignment achieves for those who made the adjustment.

 

Longest Drift - Guinness World Record (2,308 meters)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcozIffTIVU

 

So many variables in play here that an absolute answer is really not possible.

The stock P Zero's do wear quicker than several other brands with equal or even lower tread wear ratings. No one buys a second set.

The rear toe in settings are extreme and many cars are assembled and delivered at the maximum end of the range. These tires are not traveling close to a perpendicular path and will scrub across the entire width of the tire. Why? Maybe chassis dynamics, weight distribution, torque to tire width ratio .....who knows but for sure the car is intentionally set for massive understeer on purpose. M3 anyone?

I had my rear toe adjusted nearly neutral over a year ago. At the track, the difference with turn in is appreciable. I also have H&R springs and a Quaife LSD which both help managing the inevitable oversteer to the point that the car finally feels balanced in a track environment. At least until the front tires fade but 4000 pounds will do that quickly to R compounds.

Bottom line: I have nearly 11,000 street miles on a set of Dunlop Star Specs (265/35) that have just gone through the last wear bar and will be replaced this month. They also ran 2 track days before I bought a track package. They have worn much more evenly than the last pair that I used before the modifications and have lasted about 3,000 miles longer. My guess is that the alignment change, the LSD and the tire brand all contributed to doubling the life of the original P Zero's.

 

VTSnake - any update on your wear with the new rear alignment settings? What did you actually set the rear to?

 

G'day from Oz!
Geez, Lots of "complicated" answers here, but I believe the answer is fairly simple, having had a similar issue myself with a previous car, my LS2 powered HSV GTO Coupe (fairly similar to the U.S. GTO, but the Aussie cars had 19" wheels with P Zero "ROSSO" tyres)
I have yet to take delivery of our C63, but the issues are similar.
There are also different "grades" of P Zero!
I wasn't happy with the tyre wear on the GTO, so I rang Pirelli. Their answer was that the P Zero "Rosso" was a very soft "high performance" tyre used on (at the time) F430s etc....the combination of high "TORQUE", & soft rubber, causing wear not only at accelerating away from a standing start, but during normal driving, as that torque is continually being transferred to the road via the "soft" rubber, which equates to high wear characteristics.
So I reckon that's it.....a combination of soft rubber, high torque, & a bit of "acceleration" here & there.
Cheers, Pickles.

 

The PIrelli's are gumballs, The Hankooks are wearing twice as well.

 

I'm not sure how relevant this may be to your alls problem, but I just put new tires on my rear wheel drive w211 e350. I had 245/45/18 Pilot Super Sport A/S. The rears lasted 13k miles and had 2/32s when I took them off.

 

The car expensive enough as it is. There is a time and place to drive it hard, why do it all around town and have everyone thinking you're a knob, and paying the extra in tires/service/traffic tickets? It had 4 doors and a trunk. I'm pretty sure MB intended it to be driven as a normal car too.

 

I think MB intended it to serve both functions. If you never drive it hard (that doesn't mean irresponsibly) on the street then you would buy a regular C class and not waste money on the AMG. If someone wants a track only car, there are better options. AMGs are built to be practical cars that can be driven hard on the street and taken to the track... a little bit of everything for everyone. The "driven hard on the street" part is where the tires go away fast

 

I have a 2009 C63 and my original tires lasted 6,500 miles (not driving it too hard, never on the track). The fronts still had tons of tread and I didn't want to replace the rears every 6,000 miles or so. I went with the Hankooks which are pretty much near bald now, about 9,500 miles on them (I swap summer and winter sets as well). My front tires have gone around 16,000 miles now and are near the end of life.

I can probably squeeze out 11,000 miles from the Hankooks so almost double the life of the stock tires, but they probably aren't the safest to drive right now when it rains. Its amazing how much longer the front tires last than the rears, if you stayed with the stock tires you could probably go through 3 sets of rears per 1 set of front!

At Discount tire the guy told me that he thinks its mainly rear alignment and that if I had it aligned "flat" I could add around 50% to the tire life and not notice a difference in handling (unless on the track, but I don't track it). I really don't mind spending $1200 on tires, but not every summer!!! My fathers M3 lasted 18,000 miles for the stock rear tires (although that is with a lot of highway driving). If you factor in the extra cost of tires for the C63, the M3 begins becoming a lot more attractive!

In the end I am sure its a combo of alignment, torque, weight distribution. The M3 only has 300lb torque and 50/50 weight distribution, and less aggesive alignment which probalby all adds to the tire life difference.

Also for those interested, my winter LM60s have 11,000 miles on them (3 winters, 2 of them were only 3,000 mile winters), they still have at least another winter left and handle great in the snow, never gotten stuck and very few slides which are easily managed.

 

am very interested to see your results

 

Do you guys that are running a wider wheel tire set up see an improvement in premature ware? Also what do you feel are the longest lasting tire out there or best bang for buck. Ours is a daily driver so I don't feel the need for soft sticky tires that will only last a few trips to the grocery store and back.