Extreme tire ware

Installed a rear set of Continentals last July and had the car aligned. Put around 1500miles on the car before it went into storage for the winter. I took a nice highway drive (200 miles) this week and noticed the back of the car was covered in black stuff. My first thought was oil, but it turns out to be rubber. It appears the Conti's are disintegrating! Both rear tires have worn perfectly down and are nearly bald. I spoke with TireRack about getting them returned and they suggested I see a local store to get them warranted (nice customer service ) I head over to Bell Tire and get the Asst Mngr to look at the tires/back of car. We discovered the manufacture date was 2002 and he agreed with me that "something was not right with the tires". Bell Tire is still waiting for the Conti rep to get back to them. The clear spots in the pic is where I wipped with my finger to show how much rubber is on the car. Any thoughts?

Just got a call from Bell Tire....Continental is going to replace the tires!

Very cool, glad it worked out. As for the "clear spot" on the rear bumper that you wiped off. I don't think that is tire rubber, it is carbon buildup from your exhaust.

Tastes like rubber 180 miles yesterday...tires almost gone.

Now that looks like rubber! Ouch.

The saga continues. Continental is now offering me 75% off retail for replacement of the rear tires (no free replacment). But, Conti says they no longer make this model of tire. So, if I want to match the rear w/the front's then I need to order a set of the new model fronts (N2). Does anyone know what the difference between the ContiSportContact N1 and N2 is? Should I be concerned about having N1's on the front and N2's on the back? Anyone else having problems w/their conti's?

Personally I wouldn't mix N1 and N2 tires, P-cars are so sensitive about differents tires that you might feel some odd handling reactions. Even new/old tires make the car wiggle at high speed. Just my experience though...

I would press them further to get 100% replacement for all 4! They know you can't mix tires and they know the tires are old and shouldn't do this at 1500 miles. Show them your documentation and demand full replacement of all 4. They are telling you 75% and by that you would anticipate getting 6K miles on a set of tires (you reported 1500 miles to date)? They are just trying to get extra cash out of you. Sounds like a typical insurance adjuster, low-balling you hoping you fight back but still willing to give more as long as you fight for it. This is not the way it should be. Sounds like you got an old set of tires and they are deteriorating abnormally because of that.

They should prorate according to warranty. If they can replace all 4 at 75% off, it sounds like a good deal. Ask Tirerack to get involved since they are a larger distributor.

DOT indicates 2002 manufacture date...didn't even think to check, my bad. The folks at TireRack were actually laughing at me when I told them the rears had worn out at 1500 miles. What sucks the most is that everyone I have spoken to believes that I have been "lead footing it". That is definetly not the case and I try to explain to them the car is a C4 not an '84 camaro dirven by a 16 year old.

Those tires must have been left out in the sun or somehow subjected to other corrosive vapors to have the rubber fail like that. How many miles did you get out of them? I have seen tires wear out very fast because of alignment issues, but never so evenly like that. Just curious what were they inflated to? (even over inflating them shouldn't do that......) I only got 11k out of my first rear set of conti's and I didn't do all that well with the second set either. I switched to Yoks......love 'em.

The black stuff you talk about exists on every clean and waxed 996 ever made (and most every other car) and it is from tire wear, and road film. You cannot wash your Porsche and drive it for 200 miles on the highway and not get this dust. As for the wear, either you do ALOT of left cornering or your camber setting is way off. Highway driving or otherwise straight driving will ALWAYS wear the inside half of the rear tires if the allignment is set to specs. I see no sign of disintegrating of the tire in the picture, only uneven wear on the outside half of the tread which I bet is because they screwed up your alignment last year.

Pressures 36/44. Purchased tires 7/16/2004, installed, aligned 7/22/2004. This was done around 16,000 miles. Drove about 1500 miles before storing in my garage. Drove 200 miles last week and 300 miles this week. Right tire is now almost bald. I should also note the fronts are original and are in great condition. First set of rears did wear out do to poor alignment (inside wore faster than outside), but at 16K. So, this time I wanted to make sure I had the car set up correctly.

I suspect that the rear alignment is NOT setup correctly. It was setup correctly the first time. If you told the alignment shop that you had a problem with the inside of the rear tires wearing out, they probably overcompensated and you now have a positive camber which is not right. Did they give you a printout of the alignment settings? I would get it checked before putting new tires on. The rear tires on these cars should only last about 10,000 miles for street driving unless you put on some cheap, hard rubber tires.

Pic 1 OEM tire 7/2004 Pic 2 2000 miles on right tire Pic 3 rubber on left pipe Pic 4 what fell off when I wipped left pipe I did take the car to my mechanic and he will re-check the alignment. Maybe I wasn't clear in my previous posts, I did not have this problem from July to November. About 500 highway miles since putting the car back in service and all the tread is gone. It looks to me like the wear pattern is what you would expect for a correctly aligned car. The rubber just wore out at an extremely accelerated pace. I appreciate the feedback.

The pictures clearly show more wear on the outside half of the tire. This would indicate your alignment (Camber) is way off. The dust is normal from any performance tire. The picture does not show any chunks out of the tire and what is on your finger looks like normal soot and tire dust. The spots on the floor look like spit from the tail pipes. I am sure that your mechanic will find that the alignment is way off. Make sure he prints out the specs BEFORE and AFTER. However, if the new tires only have 2000 miles of street driving on them, they sure are wearing fast.

Both new and old tires have more tire wear on the inside not the outside. The first pic I posted was from yesterday morning while pic 2 (rear shot/same tire/bottom page 1) was after the wife drove the car 200 miles. In those 200 miles the tire is almost bald. The black rubber mound on the floor is what fell off my finger when I tried to snap the pic. I guess the pictures don't do it justice. I will get the before and after alignment numbers. My service receipt says "rear toe was out".

That's not wear from bad camber. That's wear from bad toe. If your toe is way off, it will grind the tread off in a few thousand miles or less. The tread wear will be even across the tread, and you get rubber dust all over your rear bumper. If your car was a squirrely mess on the freeway, it would be toe out, otherwise, it is toed-in too much. I've played with a lot of alignment settings, and this is what happens if you go too much toe-in. It's ultra-stable with too much toe-in, and you can man-handle the heck out of it, but it feels slow and shreds your tires. On one of my test alignments, I extrapolated my tire wear out to about 3K miles, so you're probably running over 1/2" of toe. I was also running Conti SportContacts, and they're the worst tires I've ever owned, so I didn't mind thrashing them to death over all sorts of alignments and tests with very careful treadwear measurements. Good luck, but if I were a betting man (which I'm not), that's where I'd put my money.

Your wear pattern looks clearer in the later picture, and hanks for confirming that the wear is on the inside edges. My rear tires wear in that pattern too, though I get descent milege out of them. I have heard the same thing about highway and "straight" driving causing that wear pattern with a stock alignment specification. My car is a high mileage commuter, so I expect the inside shoulder to wear first on the rear tires. I don't like it, but I have come to expect it. What does not compute is the short distance it took to wear your tires out. I think the poster above who pointed to a toe out condition may have it correct.