R56 delivered April 2007, 87,000+ miles on it at present. Stock sport suspension.

Late April '10 I had it aligned at the dealer (first time since new) when mounting two new 205-50R-16 Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1's. Had those tires on all four wheels (seasonal) since June '07 & had worn out two; wear was even but enough to warrant replacement.

Within 4 months / 3,000 miles the pair (original from set of 4) were badly cupped on the insides only, generating a real sing-song whine at speed on smooth hiway pavement.

2012 I put the OEM run-flats on for the summer.

This year I thought I'd put the good (newest pair from 2010) Direzza's back on the front & as I had two205/50WR-16 Bridgestone Potenza S-03 Pole Position left over from use on my '03 R53 I thought I'd put them on the rear, see what happens.

Less than 400 miles since that was done & those Potenza's are showing the same scallop wear pattern on the inside tread.

Tire pressures maintained at 33 PSI front / rear, what I've used with OEM run-flats & the wider 205's & always gotten nice even wear otherwise.

Alignment specs from the work done in 5/2010 are shown in the attached JPG file.

My question is: is -1.6° rear camber the factory spec for a MINI S that's not aggressively driven? If it increases wear on tire inside treads to 'improve' handling I'd rather revert to something more prosaic if possible. Comments welcome.

 

I don't know what the factory specs are. However, 1.6 degrees of negative camber should be fine as long as you don't have any toe-out.

Are the tires that are wearing funny on one specific end of the car? Or on both at different times? It's a little difficult to tell from your note; it sounds like the second pair developed scalloped wear while on the rear wheels.

Scalloping usually means that something is wiggling. Look for loose joints, bad bushings, blown shocks, etc. Anything that will let the wheels wobble around. Wear from a bad alignment more typically will be constant rather than varying--for instance, I had one car where the inner corners of the rear tires were shaved off at an angle. It turned out the car had significant toe-out in the back. (Oh, that's why the back liked to step out so much!)

 

Toe was +.54° total (0.27 (L) 0.28 (R)) before the alignment, when camber was - 0.7 (L)- 0.9° )R). This is at the back end where all the excessive & uneven wear has taken place.

In 50+ years of driving FWD vehicles (had an '03 S I drove for 133,000 miles) I've never seen such a problem before, front or back.

Rarely had alignments done either; tires wore evenly across the width. I could expect faster wear at front of course almost always. Rotated tires front-to-back when rotation direction was specific, or X'd when it didn't matter.

To me it seems counter-intuitive to have such drastic negative camber when the vehicle is at rest, unloaded. It's (to me at least) obvious there has to be more pressure on the tread at the insides, which when underway ought to increase. With any kind of load in the back seats (seldom) or with stuff in the back (frequent, at least in the summer) the rear wheel "splay" must grow even more pronounced?

Local non-factory MINI shop indicates factory specs are -1.5° camber & .24 toe TOTAL.

As I had virtually NO excessive / uneven wear with camber @ - 0.7 (L) - 0.9 (R) and toe @ 0.54 I think the dealer's camber change to -1.6° is the major culprit. Non-factory shop suggests a more conservative -0.5 camber, .24 total toe... effected with installation of their "tuneable" lower suspension arms.

Dealer had mentioned the "new" design features less "adjustment" potential than the earlier MINI'S rear suspension bits.

Got an appointment for the adjustable arms Friday morning. Will update as results become available.

Their installed cost (4-wheel) alignment included) is about = a full new set of decent summer tires... about what I've wasted in two summers' (~ 4,500 miles) driving.

 

I've had the same problem. 07, came with the Dunlops. They wore evenly i recall. Replaced those with Kumho run flats, they scalloped bad on the inner half of the rear. Replaced those with Bridgestone Grids non-run flat, they are starting to show the same wear after about 20k miles. Alignments have never been too far out of spec and shop says the suspension is fine. I cant Wiggle anything either and It recovers well off of bumps. I'm going to let it go a while more and likely replace again.

I do think the tread design has something to do with it. Both had v-pattern directional tread. When you look at the tire though it's like every other block is worn, very regular. So next tire will likely be Conti DW or DWS just to see. One shop offered to replace struts to see if it would help but for the price I could just replace the tires. I might seek a third opinion though.

 

I always associate scalloping with bad shocks. The tires bounce.

 

I have had the same problem with the Dunlop Non-Runflats and with other non Runflats on my Clubman. So a little back ground here I drive my car spirited daily and end up going thru a set of 30k mile tires in about 15-18k. So a couple of years I have had to put on two sets during the summer months. So in all i have had the original OEM Dunlop Sport 01's (runflats), 2 sets of Yokohama, 1 Yokohama Parada Spec, 1 set of Dunlop Direzza DZ101 (hated these, no grip) 1 set of Perelli P Zero Nero (wore these out in 12k miles). Also have run a set of Dunlop Winter Sport 3 Runfalt Snow Tires for three winters.

Well I finally took some advise from a friend that sets up race car alignments and poof the problem is gone.

What he told me was that "The suspension is is designed and set up for a specific type of tire with specific ratings. One of those ratings is the stiffness of the side wall". I.E the shocks have a specific load to them.

Now I think most of us here know that the runflats produce a very harsh and that it is due to the side wall stiffness. So the suspension on the car is set up for that level of response from the tire.

So his suggestion was "Raise the tire pressure by 3-4 pounds from the manufacturers spec and this will also raise the stiffness of the tire overall and the problem should go away."

To prove this to me he grabed one of his supper highspeed cameras (1000 frames a second) and we set it under the car and were able to watch the tire on his laptop screen as we drove. With 38 psi, MINI's recommended pressure for my car the non runflat tires would bounce. Ever so slightly but they would bounce at a set rate depending on speed the fast we went the faster the bounce. Then we set the pressure for 40 PSI and although they still bounced a little it was greatly reduced. Pumped the tires up to 42 and the bounce was gone. Unfortunately we did not think to record any of this video. It would be great to do so someday.

Put my Snow tires on and set them to 38 psi and there was no bounce dropped them to 35 and there was a little bounce, drop them to 33 and the bounce was very noticeable on the computer screen.

So in conclusion. I run my non-runflat tires i run the pressure 3-4 psi above the recommended pressure and lose the scalloping, some ride comfort, but the tire wear is now even across the tread when the car is at factory spec at the front and a slight inner edge wear on the rears if i do not rotate them.

I have other friends with BMW's that have had this same issue and it has been corrected by running a higher pressure in the non runflat tires.

So i effect what HRM stated is true but it also depends on the tire stiffness and the shock parameters.

 

OK, that's interesting you see the same pattern with RF'S as with non. Dealer suggested the wide, high performance sidewalls might be more compliant than those on runflats but others tell me if anything they're stiffer.
MUCH better than anything I've seen. 20,000 would be acceptable to me, that's at least 2 summers' worth!

You have access to your alignment numbers? Those'd be useful if available.

I've had bad struts & worn bushings on other FWD cars over the years & seen both suspect handling with no weird tread wear as well as pattern wear with decent handling under both scenarios so can't go much by that. Dealer says struts are sound & that the only units he's seen fail have been accident-damaged so I tend to discount the strut implication.

For the price, installing adjustable trailing arms seems to me to be a worthwhile move if it permits a less aggressive aligmnent in back. My driving is just not that hot & the rear wheels look really splayed with such extreme negative camber as they're set now....

 

All of what you have said is very true but with less camber the car is more likely to slide out when in a hard corner.

This is correct but ONLY if the alignment is done properly. Properly means "LOADING" the suspension. That is done by adding 150 pound to the front driver and passenger floors and 100 pound to the rear cargo area. The only alignment shop I will go to anymore does this by adding lead weights or batteries in the car.

Because this alignment shop is an hours drive I checked with three shops closer by that were recommended and NONE of them would weight the car to to the alignment and as such would have set it up incorrectly. So i drive the hour to the place that is going to do it right.

I can not give you the exact numbers but I would bet if the car is aligned properly and then the weight is taken out you will see close to the camber numbers you are talking about.

Yes the Gen 2 cars have VERY LITTLE adjustment. So little that my car could not be brought into spec.

Have a set of 4 rear control arms in mine and it si now very easy to get the alignment proper.

That sounds about right for the cost.

I have an appointment to get new tires installed and an alignment on April 20 and if I can I will take some video and get the alignment numbers for the car loaded and unloaded.

 

Wow! Thanks for all that! I've been running all the tires @ 33 psi according to my gauge. 40 seems extreme except for the track of course. I'd be reluctant to go much past 35 only to avoid higher pressures when driving in the heat of summer. You're saying those readings are when cold or after the tires are warmed up?

The sidewall thing I can understand yet I've been told the high performance, non run-flats that are showing problems have stiffer 'walls than the OEM RF's. When the wear first became noticeable & I queried TireRack (I've been buying from them for years) they suggested the summer tires have softer 'walls & thus the problem. I'd been running the wide, non-RF Dunlop's on this car with no issues though until AFTER the rear was aligned to the specs in my initial post back in spring of '07.

That's why I suspect the alignment's the root cause. That's the only major change in the conditions under which the tires are used.

 

I'd be hard pressed to believe the dealer goes to the trouble of loading cars in that manner when they do alignments, but I'll ask next time I'm there.

My habits almost NEVER see that kind of load in the vehicle anyway, certainly not when I'm doing any 'spirited' driving. To me it seems unnecessary to align for such a rare circumstance when it would lead to potential problems under less severe conditions.

What you suggest though does seem to match with what I'm seeing so you've given me food for thought and lots to go on.

My visit at the shop installing the adjustable arms is tomorrow AM. I'll be discussing all this with them once I arrive & will try to bring all I learn back to this thread once we're all done.

 

Cold Tire pressures listed in my posts. Here is a picture of the tag in the car for the recommended tire pressures.


And note the little yellow sticker in the picture that tells me to raise the pressures even more if I plan on doing more than 100 miles and hour.

I am not saying this is you but many people that get a MINI set their tire pressure to low, Many people have told me "I set it to 32 psi because that is what I have always done". The fact is that they never checked the pressure tag on the car and when then do they find out i hear "WOW they are supposed to be that high". Yes they are. And in fact many car manufacturers are increasing the pressure in the tires.

Oh and BTW my 2003 BMW 525 Sport Wagon is recommended at 40 front and 42 rear under normal single person driving and up to 46 in the rear with a full load.

Not true at all. most if not all have softer side walls. That is why many people go to a lower profile which will stiffen the side wall as there is not as much of it there and less to roll on in a corner.

It sounds as if the alignment shop did the alignment to the spec but did not "LOAD" the car.

Think about what you said. with -1.6 camber and then putting stuff in the car makes the tire splay more (more negative camber) then loading the car doing the alignment and unloading the car will do the opposite and the camber will be less (probably less than -1) when the car is at rest with out the load.

Most alignment shops will NOT load the car as it take up extra time to do this that they dont want to spend.

 

i know my dealer does. but that does not mean all do. They should but that is a different story.

It is not about how much you have in your car it is about doing the alignment the proper way. If the spec is to align a "loaded" car then that is what shoudl be done or find the proper specs for an "unloaded car".

BMW has always "LOADED" the car to do an alignment. This then sets the car to a spec. and the car runs and prefoms the way it should. Could they set a spec for an "UNLOADED" car, yes they could but that is not the way the engineers set it up to be aligned.

I will try my best to get the "unloaded numbers" when i get my car done but that will be two weeks from now.

Is this a local shop or a MINI Dealer? And thanks for bringing back what they tell you.

 

Right, makes sense.

Hmmm... I guess they opt to "design" for a worst-case scenario then; I can't imagine all BMW owners driving around 100% of the time with bodies in all the seats & the back ends filled with stuff too.

No problem. Life is for learning & by design it happens over time.

Local. http://www.theeuroshopinc.com/

I've always used "dealers" for routine or repair service but this time am opting for an independent outfit to escape from the "factory settings" mindset. I'm sure dealers have their reasons for sticking to the factory line but if there's merit in a customized approach if a situation warrants it's worth it to me to seek it out.

Glad to have your input on this issue! I thank you for your time & willingness to share.