Holy crap, too much camber.. disaster avoided!

[patrickkc]

Haven't posted in a while, but I just wanted to share this with you guys and maybe get some sort of diagnostics before I bring it to the mechanic. Changed to winters on Friday night (very lucky, because we got our first unexpected "snow storm" on Saturday!).

What really alarmed me, and I still couldn't believe it.. was the condition of my rear tire..






I've always noticed a lot of camber ever since I changed from 17"s to 20"s, but this only happened to my left rear wheel. Maybe I went through a pot hole or my control arms are messed up? Can't even imagine what would've happened if that tire went out driving on the highway at 120km/h...

[X5SND]

It's trying to tell you your rear suspension needs some tlc and then an alignment.

[Ricky Bobby]

Rear wishbones and ball joints should bring her back into spec!

[srmmmm]

That wear is concentrated in a small width of the tread, too small for just an alignment issue. The negative camber needed for such a narrow wear pattern would be easily noticeable from the rear of the vehicle. And the toe-in being that far out would have caused severe handling issues.

Alignment may be contributing, but it looks like you have a ply separation developing and the tire developed a larger diameter on the inside portion of the tread. I'd have the alignment verified and the tire inspected.

2002 X5 3.0 243,000 miles
2004 325i 108,000 miles

[TerminatorX5]

i would not worry about the tire blowing up at 120 kmh (well, of course i would worry but not too much) - I had one of my blowouts happen to Advan tire, rear left, 20" factory, going over 80-90 MPH in Panama... the tire blew, and i noticed it only about 3/4-1 mile down the road... needless to say, that the tire was shredded to nothing and the car rode on the little rubber band left on the edge of the rim... The handling was not compromised to catastrophic level, it just felt that the car was "weighted" down a bit (like someone hooked up a trailer) and strange, helicopter-type noise... I should have listened to my wife, she knew right away that i blew a tire but i had to question her couple of times if she was sure before i finally pulled over to look... lol... my blowout was not due to wear, it was due to sharp edge on a pothole..

[upallnight]

Looks like a tread separation. What type of tires (Manufacture and model) are you running. I had a similar experience on my E34 Touring running B.F. Goodrich KDW.

Treads separation are very common on retreaded tires just look at the highway litter with truck tires treads.

[davintosh]

Excessive tire wear due to camber and toe being out of spec; my X5 had the same problem when I bought it, and the nearly new Contis looked like that when I got around to rebuilding the rear suspension. Unless you know what parts in the rear end have been replaced recently, you might be best off replacing all of the wear parts back there in one fell swoop. Here's a list of items I replaced on mine:
2 Ball joint 33326767748
2 INTEGRAL LINK 33326770749
2 Guiding suspension link 33326774796
1 Wishbone, left 33326770859
1 Wishbone, right 33326770860

I also replaced the dust shields on both sides (Left - 34216750385; Right - 34216750386), a little gasket that goes on the shields (34216750867), and the wheel bearings (mine were making a good deal of noise, so unless yours are as well, don't bother.) No idea what it would cost to hire the work done, but the parts cost isn't bad (relatively) and the work involved for just the suspension bits isn't too bad; probably a 6 on a scale of 1-10. You'd need an alignment afterward as well.

[blktoptrvl]

I lost a set of fairly new tires to the same condition. It was not at all noticeable in driving. An alignment solved it.

[patrickkc]

thanks for all the help guys! I will bring it to a mechanic this week and have the suspension looked at along with the alignment.

@davintosh, I will definitely keep that list handy!

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5

i would not worry about the tire blowing up at 120 kmh (well, of course i would worry but not too much) - I had one of my blowouts happen to Advan tire, rear left, 20" factory, going over 80-90 MPH in Panama... the tire blew, and i noticed it only about 3/4-1 mile down the road... needless to say, that the tire was shredded to nothing and the car rode on the little rubber band left on the edge of the rim... The handling was not compromised to catastrophic level, it just felt that the car was "weighted" down a bit (like someone hooked up a trailer) and strange, helicopter-type noise... I should have listened to my wife, she knew right away that i blew a tire but i had to question her couple of times if she was sure before i finally pulled over to look... lol... my blowout was not due to wear, it was due to sharp edge on a pothole..

I always thought that if my tire blew, my rubber would completely shredded, and my car will suddenly start veering and in worst case scenario, my car flip (like those action movies). Glad to know that a complete tire catastrophe isn't as scary!! haha

Originally Posted by upallnight

Looks like a tread separation. What type of tires (Manufacture and model) are you running. I had a similar experience on my E34 Touring running B.F. Goodrich KDW.

Treads separation are very common on retreaded tires just look at the highway litter with truck tires treads.

I am running Hankook Ventus ST RH06 275-40-20 all around. (my rears are stretched)

@davintosh I will definitely keep that list handy

[Doru]

Lift the rear and try to move the wheel 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock, then 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock. if the there is movement change the rear suspension components.
If there is no movement, let the air out in the air suspension, then try to move the wheel. If it moves, then only the ball joints are shot (usually they are the first to fail - the other components might last twice as much as the ball joints, but you will strain them with bad ball joints and fail quicker). The process of changing the ball joints is very easy provided you have the correct press for it. It took me about 30-45 min/side, and only the ball joints were toast.

GL