falls profet

Man, it's been a while since I've posted here. I've got problem with the rear tire wear in the CLK. I just put brand new 275/35/18 Nitto NT555 on my car and I am getting more wear on the inside of the tire tread pattern (not the sidewall). I have posted this problem in the other forum and one gentleman suggested to me that it is too much spring and not enough shock. Before I put these tires on I had 255/35/18 on, and they had worn on the inside really bad as well. I constantly have a speaker box in the back that weighs 60 or so pounds and these tires have about 300 miles on them. My car is NOT lowered either. Here are some pics...

krayzie_e99

i have the same problem with my 19's after i lowered it. you need a camber kit if u want to fix it. im choosing to leave it as is. after about 10k miles, the inside of my tires gets pretty worn so i just take my ride to tire shop and rotate the tires. i get another 10k miles the other side. so 20k mi. for a tire is pretty good.

falls profet

Thanks for the reply, but I don't have my car lowered. How can the camber go negative without my car being lowered? Could the weight of the box in the back be the problem. My ride does feel a bit softer in the back since I bought it back in October. But my tech at the indy shop said my shocks were fine about 3 months ago. Could my springs be bad too?

John 99CLK430

How do you rotate staggered rims? the whole "switch the tire on the other side" method doesn't work, it's the same thing.

Our cars sit negative in the back, if you look very closely at your cars rear (yes I know you guys love it) you will see it sits slightly negative (stock) I'm assuming if you lower it, that will only worsen it. I hear alot of the users using the K-MAC camber kits and should solve the tire eating madness.

Springs don't go bad, they have long life spans, when your car goes soft it could be of 2 things, Shocks or the Struts.

krayzie_e99

[QUOTE=John 99CLK430;2403086]How do you rotate staggered rims? the whole "switch the tire on the other side" method doesn't work, it's the same thing.


\QUOTE]


no its not the same thing. i rotate by switching my rear passenger tire and putting that one on driver side. that way the worn side is on the outside and the practically new side is on the inside.

mheffel

Most cars come from the factory with some negative camber, and the CLK, being somewhat sporty, has more negative camber than the average family sedan. The exaggerated negative camber on the CLK is easily seen just by eyeballing the car from the back. I just got an alignment done and the camber was -1.00, and -1.48 for the fronts, and -1.8 deg., and -2.0 deg. for the rears. You can measure your camber roughly at home if you'd like ... this link shows one way to do it.

The negative camber helps with handling but hurts with tire wear. Adding to the tire wear problem caused by negative camber is the fact that most tires sized to fit the CLK are sportier with soft tread compunds. They wear out faster and come with no treadwear warranties. Another problem affecting tire wear is the CLK's staggered wheel sizes prevent tire rotation.

The too much spring and not enough shock problem can cause abnormal tire wear (cupping) which also leads to noise. So, bad shocks along with the CLK's natural tendencies (soft tires, neg. camber, and no rotation) to wear out tires fast anyway can tires to wear out really fast. Throw in bad toe alignment on top of all that and you'll be lucky to get 12,000 miles out of a set of tires on a CLK.

falls profet

Thanks a lot for the posts, gentlemen. Very helpful. I think I'm going to

build a new box for my sub and see what happens. I took it out earlier today

and I think it might be somewhere between 70-80 lbs. now. I really think this

is the main culprit and adding to the already present slight camber; but I

definitely knew about the negative camber on CLKs before I got mine. Being

that these cars ride so soft and the shocks are designed to ride so, the extra

constant compression may be the affect. I think the added weight

is "dropping" my car in the back almost a half inch. If nothing improves I'll

get the KMAC and be done with it. I reply at a later date on the

improvement just in case anyone else has questions about something like this

in the future.

deyainrdy4ds

how many miles on those tires falls profet?

falls profet

About 300 mi., deyainrdy4ds.


So I built a new sub box for my car that is about 22 lbs. lighter than my previous box. I can notice a slight increase in ride height, and tire wear seems to be a little bit better as far as using the length of the tread; the extra compression does seem to have an effect somewhat.

However that wasn't the most interesting part. I know people have heard or experienced the infamous "Mercedes Right Hand Pull" even when the alignment is on. I was experiencing this drastically when I had my previous, heavier speaker box and my alignment was fine. Now that I have this new, lighter box, it doesn't pull anything like it did, and the steering wheel is perfectly straight rather than having it cocked to the left to keep it straight.

I thought this might be interesting for some of you, or anyone else that may have this pulling problem with the Merc's. It could be because of what you carry in the trunk or your springs or shocks that is causing the extreme pull and not the alignment. Adding to the already present slight negative camber can, I guess, affect your driving performance in a straight line.

The Jury

You can build a box until your fingers bleed and it isn't going to help you a bit. Your tire wear comes under squat when you are accelerating..... which happens nearly the entire time you are in your car pushing forward momentum. Let your foot off the gas next time you are going down the road... slight dip forward. Foot on the gas, slight dip backwards.

My 430 is bone stock and wears as bad if not worse on the rears. The weight of a golf bag, basically, is not going to ruin your tires any more than the other CLk owners on this board.