Tyre replacement preferences?

[vc commodore]

Camber is very subjective based on driving style, if you run 2 degrees and get into it fairly heavily around corners it will still wear tyres evenly (like my VY at 1.2 degrees when I was driving it), but if you don't drive it hard you're better off reducing camber for tyre life (said VY started wearing inners when it became my GF's car so I've now got it set to about 0.6deg).

To get even wear on the front tyres, yes driving style comes into play, with the setting of the camber, combined with the toe setting.....so it is a case of reading the wear pattern and setting both camber and toe correctly, to ensure the whole tyre surface, contacts the road surface evenly, therefore preventing edge wear

 

[VFSV6FORME]

So you-tube isn't the answer...Experience is.....and this is coming from a knob that deals with these issues all day every day and you-tube "experts" that live in their own little world...

Well I left this bit out but yes I do understand how to read a tyre and understand what it is telling me. Now put this this way that if a person is smart enough to do wheel alignment my way you can bet your kanakers that this person would be able to read what the tyres are telling him. Now as for the other way around I would say yes that there are a few that can tell what their tyres are telling them but are not smart enough to do a wheel alighment my way.
As For rain camber on the road yes I know that and it does vary from road to road (2 lane to 8 lane) but in general we drive on the left hand side in Australia and you can adjust your toe in to reasonably match your steering for most roads where your wheel is straight 75% of the time and you are not fighting it most of the time

 

[Gaiter]

Did K-mart tell you this bulldust? These tyres are available at Tyrepower, Jaks, Tyres and More, Bob Jane T-mart, just to name a few....Geez, even the local back yard mechanic, with a tyre fitting machine can buy these....So it goes to show the bulldust mentioned

No, I actually rung around Jaks, Tyrepower, Bob Jane and Kmart to find out who could get them. I bought the car with them on (Kumho's) and noticed the improvement over the Bridgestone I used to get on my VY. So I wanted to get the same tyre, I rung those 4 places and only Kmart could get them.

I have never bought them online, and the prices that were on the link sent to me by notmy ss were the same I paid Kmart to put them on ($208ea), so not really a saving...


I am up for new rears soon, so I'll try widen my research, but so far loving this tyre.

 

[vc commodore]

Well I left this bit out but yes I do understand how to read a tyre and understand what it is telling me. Now put this this way that if a person is smart enough to do wheel alignment my way you can bet your kanakers that this person would be able to read what the tyres are telling him. Now as for the other way around I would say yes that there are a few that can tell what their tyres are telling them but are not smart enough to do a wheel alighment my way.
As For rain camber on the road yes I know that and it does vary from road to road (2 lane to 8 lane) but in general we drive on the left hand side in Australia and you can adjust your toe in to reasonably match your steering for most roads where your wheel is straight 75% of the time and you are not fighting it most of the time

Fighting the steering wheel if I am reading your post correctly, is an alignment (ie camber or caster issue), rather than the steering wheel being straight from toe adjustment.

An alignment is set for road going purposes, so the tyres wear evenly.....to get it to your liking, which is seems you are on about, to me sounds like you are wanting your car set up for track work, rather than an every day commute, which is what 99% of people want

 

[vc commodore]

Well I left this bit out but yes I do understand how to read a tyre and understand what it is telling me. Now put this this way that if a person is smart enough to do wheel alignment my way you can bet your kanakers that this person would be able to read what the tyres are telling him. Now as for the other way around I would say yes that there are a few that can tell what their tyres are telling them but are not smart enough to do a wheel alighment my way.
As For rain camber on the road yes I know that and it does vary from road to road (2 lane to 8 lane) but in general we drive on the left hand side in Australia and you can adjust your toe in to reasonably match your steering for most roads where your wheel is straight 75% of the time and you are not fighting it most of the time

Fighting the steering wheel if I am reading your post correctly, is an alignment (ie camber or caster issue), rather than the steering wheel being straight from toe adjustment.

An alignment is set for road going purposes, so the tyres wear evenly.....to get it to your liking, which is seems you are on about, to me sounds like you are wanting your car set up for track work, rather than an every day commute, which is what 99% of people want

I will add in, the main cause of keeping a steering wheel straight, whilst driving along a road, is caster....Caster is a big factor in having the car drive straight along the road....Where the biggest issue would be, for an aligner is, in your instance, adjusting the caster correctly, which is only achieveable in these commodores via an adjustable caster kit, is being able to drive the car in the correct lane that you would and adjust accordingly.....by doing this, the aligner then would be faced with an irate customer, querying why so many kilometres have been put on the car, for a simple alignment.

This anger would come either in person or via a lovely site like this....or both......So, instead of just saying, no one can adjust your car to your liking, think of the flip side of the coin, on what us knuckle heads have to deal with and then comment.....

I can also tell you from first hand experience, where I have been abused for driving a persons car.....A friend of the customer spotted me driving the car, after an alignment...The customer came to collect their car and abused the crap out of me, because I was seen driving their car....After explaining the reason I drove it a whole 2 kilometres, the person settled down. So here's another first hand experience that us knuckle heads have to deal with, in the pursuit of customer satisfaction

 

[VFSV6FORME]

Fighting the steering wheel if I am reading your post correctly, is an alignment (ie camber or caster issue), rather than the steering wheel being straight from toe adjustment.

An alignment is set for road going purposes, so the tyres wear evenly.....to get it to your liking, which is seems you are on about, to me sounds like you are wanting your car set up for track work, rather than an every day commute, which is what 99% of people want

For my Budget VR Commodore the String will do but for something a little more Expensive I will take the car to a alignment place and I will involve myself in the findings and what it should be set at according to figures that others in the know will tell me.
After all this is what is needed by having the correct numbers to match your driving habits.

 

[vc commodore]

For my Budget VR Commodore the String will do but for something a little more Expensive I will take the car to a alignment place and I will involve myself in the findings and what it should be set at according to figures that others in the know will tell me.
After all this is what is needed by having the correct numbers to match your driving habits.

This is your choice....I was mearly pointing out that the issues raised by yourself aren't purely the knobhead operating the alignment computer. And I will also add in, there is no aftermarket kit, to correct caster on a VR, which seems to be the main cause of your beef with aligners.

In saying the caster issue with you and your VR, there are ways to get around it, but again, us knobhead aligners then have to deal with internet experts when it comes to explaining why we did what we did to get the car driving half decent, without the expense of replacing a number of parts....So next time, think outside the square instead of a blanket reasoning that you have tried

 

[adr8]

Kumho Ecsta LE Sport KU39

Love them. Much grip, especially in the wet. Can only get from Kmart

Great tyre, really happy with them. I bought them direct from International Tyre Trader's website which was slightly cheaper than their ebay store. I also used the LS1 forum discount code which brought the price down to $208 for 275/30/20.

 

[Gaiter]

us knobhead aligners then have to deal with internet experts

Hey knobhead aligner, I kid I kid!

Random question seeing as you are in the business. I was under the impression that tyre places would align your wheels to drift slight left so that in the case of falling asleep at the wheel the car would go off the road not into oncoming traffic etc. Is this true or some stupid myth I heard along the way somewhere?

Also heard it's the same reason roads have a curvature to them, to force cars off the road in case of sleeping driver.

 

[Smashfist]

Random question seeing as you are in the business. I was under the impression that tyre places would align your wheels to drift slight left so that in the case of falling asleep at the wheel the car would go off the road not into oncoming traffic etc. Is this true or some stupid myth I heard along the way somewhere?

That's certainly not a consideration when we do alignments. If we send cars out that want to wander left, even slightly, we get customers coming back quick smart. Usually the left front is weighted with slightly more camber to counter the road fall. You can also compensate a little with toe but we find an extra 0.05-0.1 degree on the left tends to compensate nicely.