Baloo588

Hello,

Is anyone having abnormal or increase rear tire wear on their A8Ls? I have been having this with my 2012 Audi A8L and my alignment was not that out of spec. Do you guys do rotation or no?I have not done this on my car and my first 2 sets of tires lasted 30k miles with even wear w/o rotation (Continental Contiprocontacts). But this 3rd set of tires are the Michelin Pilot Sport AS3 and with only 18 k miles the rears are 3/32 average and the fronts are 7/32 depth. I do rotate due to funny handling and vibration that occurs with rotation at every 10k mile service so I leave them the way they are and rebalance them as needed.

mishar

It was probably enough to cause extensive wear. Is it uniform across the tire width? Pressure?

Rear tires on A8 should last longer than front ones, unless you are driving five persons, lots of luggage and forget to pump them up to that load.

Baloo588

The rear alignment had more toe-in but still within spec though. The pressure was set to normal load as it is only me in the car. No other passengers or luggage. The dealer is very good and my tech guy who does alignment is spot on each time like with my older 2006 A8L which I drove up to 180k miles with good alignments every year. The problem he said was that the AS3 have SL rating and the original contientals were XL rating which bolsters the tires ability to hold the weight of the car and last longer. What do you think of that assessment mishar?

mishar

I thought you said that your alignment was a bit out of spec. I hope they checked all suspension components before alignment. Generally speaking I always have some reservations about those fancy alignment machines.

Your new tires have a lower load rating but I don't think that can cause premature wear. If that is the cause fronts would wear faster because A8 has more weight there. There is a remote possibility that rear tires are much older , or in some other way different than fronts. Check dates on them.

RED HORSE

I think one of the great big little dirty secrets about wheel alignment is that many of the wheel alignment machines ARE NOT calibrated. I know for a fact they have a calibration schedule that is to be followed, but I'm not confident all shops, independent or dealerships, have the scheduled calibration done. And, even if they do, one technician driving off the machine without the locks being properly set may ruin the calibration and thus all cars done after that will in fact be off even though the machine says they are within spec.

Baloo588

The machine was calibrated few days ago so I assume this time the alignment was done properly on the car compared to 8 months ago.