My car seems to go out of alignment and has been chewing through tires every 6 months. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

When was it aligned last?

 

It was aligned in December and then on Saturday again since a back tire had worn out again.

 

What size tires are you using? If you have low-profile tires, they wear more quickly.

Also, do you have any suspension mods? If you have lowering springs or anything like that, it can also mess with your alignment and treadwear.

 

It's the high performance tires (low profile). Maybe that's why. I'm going to replace them with something else that's compatible next time.

 

Ok, sorry, I'm not a big car person...are suspension mods after-market or would they have been on the original model from the manufacturer?

 

Aftermarket modifications, such as lowered springs, modified struts, sway bar etc.

 

i've had low profile tires on my car for two yrs and they now need replacing, regarless of the type of tire(unless you have gum ***** on there) it shouldn't be going threw tires that fast. Since you've had it aligned, have you hit any curbs or anything like that? that would throw it out of alignement. Or the place you brought it to might not have done a good job. If you get new tires, have them check your rims to make sure they are true. most places should do that anyway, but it really dosn't make sense that it would eat up your tires that fast if your rims are true, your car is aligned, and you're not driving like a maniac. I'd get a second opinion

 

ive had low profiles on my last car for 4 years, also it had lowering spings and dif. struts with dif. sway bars, and the are wearing evenly and theres still a lot of tread left on them. i would take your car to a dif. alignment shop

 

I'm no Tiburon expert by any means. I've only had my 08 Tiburon for a month. But there are some generalalignment issues I can speak about. Most new cars built today don't include adjusters for alignment of 2 of the three aligment components. Specificly, adjusters for camber and castor usually don't come from the factory. Toe-in is the only adjustment that the factoryinstalls. That doesn't mean that theother twocomponentscan'tbe adjusted but you usually need to buy the adjustment bolts (screws,whatever) to adjust to the correct specification. I agree it's rather shortsighted but it tends to be the trend for manufacturers. Usually the correct adjusters can be purchased from the manufacturers directly (through dealers naturally) or cheaper from the aftermarket (try MOOG). I don't know if generally this is true for Hyundai or specificly for the Tiburon, but I stongly suspect it is true for Hyundais.

Now here's the rub. Some shops figure since there's no adjustment for castor and camber they don't need to worry about 'em. So you go get an alignment, pay your money and drive merrily away under the belief that your aligment is good even though it, if fact, may be bad. To protect against this. When you go to get an alignment ask if they can provide a printout of the before and aftervalues of the alignment. If they can, then be sure to ask for it. The printout will include the "specification" for your car. Verify that the after adjustment value is within the specification. If it's not, and the reason is that the adjustment from the factory isn't provided then you'll prolly have to pay for the proper part and the labor to install it although the actual adjustment should be covered under your original alignment fee.

I buy new cars pretty frequently and this alignment issue has been true in the last two cases. On an 03 Thunderbird (I still have) the alignment was good, but when I lowered it, the alignment was whacked. I had to buy the adjusters for both camber and castor (to the tune of like $80 for the parts) to make the alignment good. More recently,on an 05 GTO (which I traded for the Tiburon) The camber was out by a small percentage (I don't really remember how much) and I again had to buy the adjuster to fix it. I this case I only had to buy the camber adjuster. I could have bought the castor adjuster, but the value was dead nuts so I didn't bother. Although, you may want to considerinstalling all the adjusters if the labor for installing one includesall adjusters. That really depends on the alignment shop. Ask to be sure. You could be saving a few bucks for labor down the road at the cost of a few bucks for parts right now. I hope it goes without saying that these parts come in pairs. The adjusters for camber would be bought in a pair, one for the left wheel and one for the right wheel. The same would be true for castor.

Which brings me to the final part, and one that may be most relevant to the original post. Most modern alignment shops have alignment racks capable to to a "4 wheel" alignment even though they may market a 2 wheel and 4 wheel alignment (usually the 4 wheel alignment is more expensive). YOU ALWAYS WANT TO DO A 4 WHEEL ALIGNMENT! This has nothing to do with how many drive wheels you have. It insures the relationships between all 4 wheels. You could easily have a rear wheel out of whack for various reasons. Again, in most cases, if one (or both) of the rear wheels alignment are whacked then the adjuster just aren't there. In this case, the factory or aftermarket may provide a solution, but it's much less a sure thing. The shop doing the alignment may have to get creative by adapting an adjuster for another car or replacing a control arm or bushing(s), or in some extreme cases by bending parts. Naturally, some of theearlier posts have points that may be causing your problem like bent wheel or inproperly installed wheel, etc.