OE Tire Question...

[Keith in Seattle]

Hi Folks-

Two weeks ago today I had the great good fortune to acquire a ’97 NSX-T with only 6988 miles. She is Formula Red over Black, in like-new condition. Obviously, this car has had a very easy life. And yesterday we had our first extended drive- Joy!

While going over the car, however, I discovered that the front tires are reversed, i.e. the RF is on the LF, and vice versa. These are the original Yokos, and the mis-mounting is plainly apparent because the outer sidewalls on both fronts say “This side faces inward.” The rears are mounted correctly. All four tires are nearing the ends of their lives, the rears have about 1/8” of tread and are pretty evenly worn. The fronts have a bit more tread, on average, but are clearly more worn on the outer edges than the inners. So here’s the question- what should I do about this?

Clearly, I will need to buy new tires soon (although I will probably put only 1000-2000 miles per year on this car). In fact, a buddy at a local shop suggested that I might want to replace the current tires based on their age alone. And I have pretty much decided to get another set of the OE Yoko’s (although I’m still getting used to the chrome OE 7-spokes that came with the car; I’d have preferred the brushed aluminum with clearcoat). So my question is- should I swap the RF with the LF for now, and get new tires when I really need them, or should I just not fuss with this and get new tires now?

TIA for your help.

Keith

P. S. Pics at-

http://www.pbase.com/kfournie/keiths_97_nsx&page=1

 

[KGP]

How about properly re-mouting the fronts until you get some new tires? Swapping the LF wheel to the RF is not going to change the fact that they are mounted wrong.

 

[Ennesssex]

Hey Keith,

I actually had a simliar dilemma when I purchased my x about a month ago. The rear tires had about 1500 miles left on them and the fronts were nearly new. I swapped the rear tires as soon as I decided which ones to get. I ended up matching the existing fronts and new rears (toyo proxes t1-s). I too would have gone OEM but decided mix matching tires was a bad idea. IMHO, I would replace all four tires on your car as soon as you can. I wouldn't risk losing control of the car because of bad tires or wrong rotational directions.

Congrats on your new car too!

 

[Keith in Seattle]

Need advice re. my new NSX...

Hi Folks-

I have an issue with the OE tires on my new (to me) '97 NSX. Yes, I know there is a Tire & Wheel board, but I posted there yesterday and got only two responses. Frankly, I was hoping for more input to help me decide what to do next. So I hope it's not bad manners to be posting this question here.

Anyway, two weeks ago I had the great good fortune to acquire a ’97 NSX-T with only 6988 miles. She is Formula Red over Black, in like-new condition. Obviously, this car has had a very easy life. Yesterday we had our first extended drive- Joy!

While going over the car, however, I discovered that the front tires are reversed, i.e. the RF is on the LF, and vice versa. These are the original Yokos, and the mis-mounting is plainly apparent because the outer sidewalls on both fronts say “This side faces inward.” The rears are mounted correctly. All four tires are nearing the ends of their lives, the rears have about 1/8” of tread and are pretty evenly worn. The fronts have a bit more tread, on average, but are somewhat more worn on the outer edges than the inners. So here’s the question- what should I do about this?

Clearly, I will need to buy new tires soon (although I will probably put only 1000-2000 miles per year on this car). In fact, a buddy at a local shop suggested that I might want to replace the current tires based on their age alone. I have pretty much decided to get another set of the OE Yoko’s (although I’m still working on getting used to the chrome OE 7-spokes that came with the car; I’d have preferred the brushed aluminum with clearcoat). So my question is- should I just re-mount the RF and LF tires on the appropriate wheels for now, and get new tires when I really need them, or should I just not fuss with this and get new tires now?

TIA for your help, and, again, sorry if this is an incorrect post.

Keith

P. S. Pics at-

http://www.pbase.com/kfournie/keiths_97_nsx&page=1






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01-20-2004 18:06

 

[Veleno]

First welcome to the club!

Since the tires are almost worn and switching them wouldn't really make a difference since it's more worn on the outside (which will be the inside when you switch it right? or no?) then spring for a new set so you won't have to worry about anything else.

With such low miles and like new condition I would hate to hear of something bad happening due to the tires. Get new tires and have peace of mind

 

[hlweyl]

Hi Keith and welcome to the board. If I were you, I would probably spring for a new set of OEM tires.

Most any tire you buy for the NSX will be unidirectional so moving any wheel/tire combination from right to left and vice versa should not be done. Some people with non-OEM fronts will have the front tires dismounted and switched right to left but this shouldn't be done with OEM fronts as the tires are made right and left specific.

It is normal for the rears the wear evenly and the fronts to wear on the inside edge due to the aggresive suspension settings.

 

[ChopsJazz]

The tires were probably switched by someone unfamiliar with the NSX OEM tire in order to save some tread life. The alingment specs and the tire design wil severly wear out the inside edge of the fronts in day to day freeway driving. In fact, they should not be reversed in this manner, and that was a good catch on your part!

The NSX tires are corner specific. That is, each tire was designed for a specific corner of the car to work in a specific manner. The fronts are designed to "walk" outward about 1/4 inch or so each rotation. This works in conjuction with the toe-out specs of the front alignment and enhances turn-in.

With your tires reversed you are probably not in a dangerous driving situation, but you are certainly not experiencing the crisp handling that was the intention of the designers. Get new ones and put them where they belong.

 

[titaniumdave]

Tire swap

Hi Keith,
Welcome to the club also. I would agree with all the posts about putting new tires all the way around the car. Peace of mind is worth it.

I had Kumho 712's on my car when I got it and was getting the classic inside tire wear and decided to rotate the tires left to right on the wheels. The Kumho's are not side specific they are rotation specific. Well, the tire contact patch is so greatly reduced the car became almost no fun to drive, slow to turn in and understeers like crazy. I got to experience a spin at the track with this set up, trying to drive the car the way I did before I swapped the tires. Fortunately PIR has plenty of run out in most corners, but I would not recomend that experience. I learned my lesson, put a new set of tires on the next week and have been happy since. My car just eats tires, that is OK beacuse I love the way it handles. I think you will be surprised how much crisper the turn in is with new tires. Go for it!

Dave

 

[nsxtasy]

Here's what I would ask, in order to answer your question. How much does it cost you to have the tires remounted and balanced? How much tread is left on the front tires? How much do front tires cost? I would then use the answers to those questions to decide the most cost-effective solution.

For example, let's say your front tires have 3/16" (6/32") of tread left on them, and that you normally drive them until the treadwear indicator bars are flat across, at 2/32" tread. That means that you have used one half of the useful life of your front tires, since they come with 10/32" of tread when new. Yokohama A022H front tires for your car currently sell for $195 each new. Therefore, if you keep using the front tires, you have $195 of tire life (half of their life, at $390 a pair) remaining.

Your choice then becomes, is it worth spending the cost of remounting and rebalancing the tires (let's say $60) in order to take advantage of the remaining life on the front tires ($195)? Obviously, the answer is yes, so you should have the tires remounted and rebalanced.

If the tires have much less than half of their life remaining, or if you generally replace them at 3/32" or 4/32", these numbers could change, possibly enough to change your decision.

Work the numbers, and make your decision based on that.

Incidentally...

How about properly re-mouting the fronts until you get some new tires? Swapping the LF wheel to the RF is not going to change the fact that they are mounted wrong.

I assumed that when he said "should I swap the RF with the LF for now", he was implying that he would indeed remount the tires (facing the proper direction outwards) as part of the swap. It's clear from your (KGP's) comments that you did not make this assumption, but I would (since switching the tires to the opposite sides of the car without remounting them will still have them with the wrong side facing out).

 

[ncdogdoc]

This is easy. As someone above stated, you do not have much left on the tires. Leave them alone.

When you are ready to buy new tires, and if you are close on the rear, then just get all four, and replace all four. The wrong direction will do less for your handling than the worn tires, and since the car probably has a little (guessing here) negative camber up front, the worn sides of the tires should be on the outside shoulders for safety in the wet.

In the long run, just get four new tires and mount them correctly. In the mean time, just let it go, and do not worry about it. This is from someone who has done it all with tires, and I am usually pretty anal about this type of thing. HTH.

BTW, thoroughly enjoy the car, funny mounted tires or not

 

[Keith in Seattle]

Thanks for your help!

Hey Guys-

I just wanted to thank you all for the input; it was really helpful. In the end I decided to do it right; that is, to get a new set of OE tires on the car right away. I figured she deserved it. So hopefully next Tuesday or Wednesday I will be ready to take her out with a proper setup. Yes!

Thanks again.

Keith

 

[Tony Montoya]

Why is nobody questioning why an NSX with less than 7k miles has worn out and reversed front tires?

 

[titaniumdave]

Tires

Tony has a great point, would make sense to have the alignment checked just to make sure everything is perfect to start with. I get so used to talk about replacing tires I never thought about the low mileage, good catch.

Dave

 

[nsxtasy]

Why is nobody questioning why an NSX with less than 7k miles has worn out and reversed front tires?

It's normal for an NSX to wear out a set of rear tires in 7K miles. So the rears are a no-brainer.

In front, tires usually last longer. If the NSX is not driven particularly hard, it's common - even with a proper alignment - for the front tires to wear out quicker on the inside of the tread than the outside of the tread.

I would be willing to bet that the previous owner saw this typical pattern of uneven tread wear on the front tires, and decided to even out the wear by reverse-mounting them. He probably was not aware of the design characteristics of the NSX tires, where they are designed to optimize handling as long as they are mounted correctly.

 

[Tony Montoya]

What Ken suggests is most likely what happened. I forgot that if you gently drive the NSX in a straight line your front tire wear will be severe.