Hello everyone, I have been having issues with my tires for a while now. About 31k miles on the car, stock tires (Bridgestone Turanza). I noticed wear on the outside edge on my 2 front tires about 3 months ago. Took it to a shop and had them check the alignment. The front was out of spec and they adjusted it, the back was fine. I had them rotate them. One of the tires brought up front is a pretty new one I had to buy due to a puncture, the other was a factory tire. 3 months later I seem to have issues again. The OEM tire brought up front is showing the same outside edge wear pattern as before, but the new one that was moved up front seems to be OK as far as I can tell. I have ordered a set of 4 new tires that will be delivered to a local shop later this week, but I don't want them to get chewed up like these. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Could this be caused by junk factory tires? The first 3 pictures are of the front tires.
It almost looks like it's wearing on both outer edges which usually suggests under inflation of the tires. What pressure are you running?
I suggest that you get the alignment checked again.......at a different shop......and then rotate them per Toyota's suggestion in the future. My C says rotate at 5K miles and do oil at 10K. I compromise and do both about 7K. Front wheel drive cars tend to wear the front tires more and differently than the rears, even if everything is set right.
Thanks for the replies everyone. Took it to the best rated shop in town to get my new tires put on and an alignment. The shop before never showed me any printouts, just told me they corrected it. This one was much more thorough. They corrected the toe on the front, but quoted me about $400 to get the rest in line. Apparently Toyota made it difficult to work on. Here is the printout:
That rear toe is certainly contributing to the problem. I don't know the adjustment method. Some cars require shim plates, many others use eccentric bushings and some even have nice threaded adjusters. Sometimes the adjustment mechanism doesn't work because it's been damaged by debris or salt corrosion.
Very late to the party. I just ran into the same problem. For people viewing this thread in the future, If you have same abnormal wear as described here by the OP, its Toe alignment off. My 2013 did the same and killed my tires early because the outer edges of my fronts were getting really thin. Should have another 20k km life on them... Went with Michelin's energy saver and a alignment check. My front toe was off... front toe should be close to 0.0. Anyways I park my car in B7 so that spiral up and down 2 to 3 times a day did not help a bit when alignment was off. I do not think camber and castor is adjustable on the Prius C so correct me if I am wrong, only part replacement can fix camber and castor going out of specs. 3rd day with the new tires and alignment adjusted to 0.23 from 0.71. It is a night and day difference. I will keep an eye on the wear pattern for the next few months to come.
