ElanMike

A year ago I put 20" Vossen wheels on my 2007 SL550 and used lowering links to lower the car an inch or so. A few weeks ago I started to get vibration in the wheel so took it to the tire shop. Much to my surprise the inside of each tire was worn right down and was starting to detach from the side wall - one had actually detached and was close to blow out. The tires (Falken FK452s) had done less than 10k miles and the tread was good across the rest of the tire. The tire shop and the respondents to the post I put in Wheels and Tires section of this forum say this is due to lowering. Apparently you need to get an alignment when lowering or this happens. I didn't see anything about this in the hundreds of threads I read on lowering and lowering links (maybe I'm the only one out there that didn't know that), but I thought I would post this in the hope that I could save someone else from the same issue - it was an expensive lesson for me - $1400 in new tires!
"photo" shows the rear that was about to fail
"Photo2" is a shot of the same tire from the front showing tread across 90%+ is still perfectly good
"photo3" shows one of the fronts which had wear similar to the rest of the wheels.

Photo and Photo2 are loaded in this thread: https://mbworld.org/forums/wheels-ti...k452-fail.html

Vossen Wheels

Mike,

It happens to many many cars/brands. Its so important to get the camber/toe/alignment right at the shop and sometimes you might still experience inner tire wear. Glad to see nothing bad happened in regards to the tire separating.

Good luck to you.

Benz-O-Rama

Absolutely caused by lowering. The lower you go, the more negative camber it causes. Depending on height, you may need camber arms to get the alignment spot on. Most people just get it as close as possible with just the alignment, and understand that you're gonna chew threw tires. It's completely normal to have that type of wear with oversized wheels and lowered suspension.

Keep in mind you're gonna have the same issue with your new rubber.


And Jav, don't you owe me a phone call?

ElanMike

I took it to the dealer yesterday and they did thee alignment. I raised it a little (a tad too low before) and they used Camber arms to get it precise - $250! I figured it's worth it if it stops me going through tires in less than 10k miles.
Now I still have a slight vibration at speed. I'm concerned i may have slightly dented a rim

Late

The dealer was able to adjust camber? My dealer told me that it wasn't possible with a stock SL 500.

ElanMike

Yes they adjusted camber.
They can adjust to a certain level using some low cost extenders - $20 for the parts on mine! If you want to go lower, they need camber arms at $80 per corner! I raised a little to avoid the $320 for the arms. I now have about 1" above the wheel without the camber arms.