RS4 tire wear - thoughts?
 

Hey guys, I the inside of my passenger side front tire is wearing / chunking a bit after a few days on the track. The tires are Hankook RS4's which generally wear well so I'm not sure of the problem. I'm running abt -1.8 camber, and no more than 36/37psi hot. Going out cold they were at abt 27. Maybe they were too low in psi to start??

Thoughts?https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...7c69886bfd.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...c03c575ac0.jpg

Scott, I've never used those tires but in my experience chunking occurs with heat, and it HAS been hot as hell lately (high of 97F at the Glen last week)--they don't look like they are rolling over excessively so pressures are prolly close to OK. I have less camber than you do on my Mini (along with fwd to make matters worse) and in the aforementioned heat @ WGI I started out with 2# LESS cold than I normally do and was pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of wear, and grip was still about as good as it ever gets.

Not much of an answer I know; hope my tires look half that good after 6thGear Wednesday :p

Gary

Hey Gary, I wondered about heat too, but it was from when we were at Watkins early in June. It wasn't very hot then, and I managed the tires pretty well I thought... I will be there Wed as well. Weather looks great!!

Maybe you simply got a bad batch? It's weird that they're chunking where they are and not on the shoulder. As stated, flip 'em as needed--I'll be running 4 "rights" on my car Wednesday :p
See you there!

I'm on my second set and that looks normal in my experience. That groove where the chunking is occurring is very shallow. You'll eventually wear the tire down to a point where it's no longer visible.

I run 28 cold / 36 hot in my BMW.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...eb4b162f60.png

Thanks guys, I will try a little lower PSI tmr, see how they look after. I'm not worried so much as confused by the wear. The RS3's didn't do this to me, but I had a different car then too...

Scott, how do you like the RS4 in terms of grip, predictability, etc? Thanks.

Scott, great to see you and Paul out yday--how'd your tires look afterwards?

Better than mine, I'd wager.....I corded two of the four and the other two are shot as well--3.5 hours of track time'll do that ;)

Gary

I've run 2 days so far on mine, on an E46 BMW, and am happy with them. I'd previously run Pilot Super Sports, and these are grippier, and seem to work well in hot temperatures (by Pittsburgh standards). They do slide when pushed, and I think there is a clear indication when you are starting to lose grip. On my car, you don't approach a cliff and then fall off.
YMMV on another car, track etc.

It has been a while since I ran RS3's, but these don't seem much different so far. Pretty progressive and they wear well but I can't comment on wet performance yet. I had NT01's last year, wish they made them in my size... these are good, but I miss the grip of the NT01. RE71 is close in that respect, just doesn't wear as well.

In terms of an update, I swapped left to right and ran them backwards since it was dry. Same chunking on the other side. I ran lower psi, didn't seem to make a difference. Not a big problem, just not sure why this is happening...