Speaking of alignment..

[1993CivicVX]

My car has needed an alignment for a long time. It pulls to the right. The right front tire is wearing much faster than the rest. A coworker said it was because it is the drive wheel. Does this make sense? (of course they are way over inflated) I want to swap my two front wheels but I guess the only way that's happening is if I actually remove the tires from the rims and reverse them since you can't swap tires on the rims from side to side of the car (from what I've heard). Any suggestions on what I might do about the worn tire aside from replacing it? My dad says it's hard to tire iron a tire off--but it'd be worth the effort to get the other front tire worn down to be even with the other. Anyone have personal experience with tire removal and putting a tire on a rim? Also not sure what doing an alignment will do if one front tire is worn and the other isn't.
Aside from reduced tire wear, will a straight alignment really make a noticeable diff in FE? I'd classify the pull as moderate. If you weigh the car down (especially if the weight is on the right side) then the pull becomes bad/very bad.)


A simpler issue I'm curious about is my clutch. It makes a scrinch noise when I depress it. I don't remember hearing it before--but maybe it's normal. Any other VX clutches go scrinch when you depress it fully?

[R.I.D.E.]

Considering your mileage the alignment can't be too bad. but I would get it done. Mine still needs an alignment. I have seen damaged tires cause a pull when the alignment was good.

The noise in the clutch, could be the pivot ball for the release fork. If it makes a noise when the engine is off see if you can hear it where the release fork comes out of the side of the transmission housing to connect to the slave cylinder.

Its possible to lubricate it but you have to be VERY careful to not get any lube on the clutch or you could ruin it.

regards
gary

[GasSavers_Erik]

I've done a few tubed tires with tire irons. Its tough to break the bead loose from the rim and then I usually tear the thin rubber strip that seals around the rim. This is not an issue when using tubes, but a tubeless tire will leak. Then you'd have to also get it balanced.

I had a used tire mounted and balanced for $11 2 weeks ago.

I have been hearing that it's now OK to move a tire from the left to right side of a car and vice versa.

IMHO I'd get it aligned- I find pull really annoying and it will help FE if only 0.01 mpg- every little bit helps!

[theholycow]

Is the tire wearing evenly, or on one edge, or on both edges, or in the center, or cupping, or chipping, or anything else weird?

It's fine to move a tire from one side to the other.

The issue is something about the tire wearing in for the side it's on, and not riding smoothly when you put it on the other side. It doesn't matter if you switch it from one rim to the other, the reason to dismount it is to flip it and remount it. Nobody does this, everybody just leaves it on the rim and does the regular tire rotation. If move it and find it's not riding smoothly, you can try having it dismounted, flipped, and remounted with what was the inside now on the outside.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=43


Do style A for FWD vehicles. In your case, if you just want to swap the front tires, just do that instead.

Do get the car aligned. If it's pulling that bad, handling may not be safe, and tire wear definitely suffers, and I suspect that fuel economy suffers.

[1993CivicVX]

Thanks guys! I believe the tire has worn a little more on the outside edge than the rest of the tire but the whole tire looks pretty well worn. I will just swap the fronts and see how she blows. Thanks again.

[GasSavers_bobski]

Switching left and right sides is only an issue with tires that use a directional tread. If you switched a directional tire from one side to the other, it would end up spinning in the wrong direction, which would likely cause excess road noise and reduce hydroplaning resistance. Directional tires generally have a rotation marking of some sort on the sidewall.

[R.I.D.E.]

I think the Firestone 500's of many years ago brought on the "dont reverse rotation" precaution. I still prefer to not reverse rotation. I just rotated mine front to rear on the same side, because I can't get any replacement to match the originals. I'll try to wear them all out at the same time then replace them as long as they hold up. They are already 15 years old.

regards
gary

[Ford Man]

Years ago (early 70's I think) when they first started making steel belted radials they said not to rotate them side to side, but I haven't heard that for years. At that time anytime you saw a diagram for rotating steel belted radials it would show going front to rear without changing sides. I have noticed that the right front tires on my cars usually wear a little faster and I also believe it's partially because it is the drive wheel. If you are getting more wear on the inside or outside of the tire you are probably a little out of line. The tire is probably also out of balance if the wear isn't even. It would probably be a good idea to get the fronts on the rear anyway if you want them all to wear out at the same time, because on front wheel drive cars the front tires will wear out about twice as fast as the rear.

[theholycow]

I've usually figured that one front tire wore faster than the other due to more of my turns being one way or the other. For example, I used to fly around a right-curved exit ramp daily, and my left front tire wore more than any other tire.

[VetteOwner]

heres another thing to think about: if you just switch drive wheels (front ones in your case) wear those out then you only have to buy 2 new tires instead of 4 if you were to rotate all of em.

fwd cars tend to wear out tires alot faster for a few reasons ! the front tires are not only turning the car its propelling it 2 hard acceleration laucnhes th weight of the car to the trunk lifting up the front end which in turn puts less force to keep the tires on the road so you may be doing a slow burnout if you take hard right turns and accelerate hard. (kinda liek taking the front whel of a bycycle and just turnign the handle bars back and forth on the concrete, there will be a black mark (ie chunks of rubber) )

but to answer your questions:

yes get an alignment (sometimes they have deals if you get an alignment + tires)

yes u can swap the tires left to right, used to be back in the day with radial ply that the story goes that the tire breaks in to going a certain direction and if you reverse it it can make the ply layers come apart

all you do is take the rim off and put the rim/tire combo on the other side, use jackstands take em both off or take one off, put the spare on temporarily, jack up the other side.

alignments not only adjust if the wheels are goign straight they adjust the angle at which they contact the road (yours is off if one side wears weird) theres also another adjustment but not sure exactly what its purpose is...

u havent hit any curbs or potholes lately have you?