Uneven Tire Wear on Lowered '07 Tahoe

[XCaliberTactical]

I am hoping for some feedback from those of you who have performed modifications to lower the ride height of your vehicles. In the spring of '07 I hired a custom shop to install a set of Eibach Pro Kit Lowering Springs on my father's '07 Tahoe LTZ 2WD with Air Suspension/Auto-Ride. Since my father is in his 70's (but not quite ready to give up commuting all his golf buddies), I thought the 2" front and rear drop might help him to comfortably climb in and out of the vehicle. But since the truck doubles as my law enforcement and military product sales business vehicle (I'm not quite ready to give up my sports coupe just yet), I felt it best to keep the 20" tires stock since occasionally I must go off-road to various firing range. We did change the wheels but kept them to the stock factory dimensions. About 12,000 miles later and just recently the dealer during a routine check-up noticed uneven wear on the inside of the tires which alarmed my father to think there is a defect in the Tahoe's design. I am well aware that lowering sometimes will result in this condition but I had assumed that the shop had made adjustments for this but now I am uncertain.

Is anyone else having this problem or have a solution? I know that Eibach now has Pro Spacer and Alignment Kits (Front +/-1 degree camber adjustment or Front +/- 1.5 degree camber/caster adjustment) but I'm uncertain what kit to purchase and use and the shop that I had used isn't certain themselves as they are used to doing off-road 4X4 lift kits rather than lowering kits.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Apichart "Sam" Chong
www.xcalibertactical.com

P.S. We're friends with Dillon Aero who's GMC Yukon XL with their M-134D 7.62 NATO minigun mounted on the roof video has circulated around the net. Next time I'm over there I'll see if I can snap off some pics of it and post it here sometime.

 

[JKmotorsports]

On suspension systems with single pivitol control arms, the camber will go negative when the vehicle is lowered, wearing the inside edges of the tires if not corrected. Not all shops will perform alignments unless you specify them to. Sometimes if you go too low, you go beyond the range to correct the camber. A couple inches like in your case should be ok though. I'd drop by a local alignment shop and have them check out the camber and get it back within an acceptable range.

 

[dmsmotorsports]

Having over 50 GM900 drops under my belt, one of the reasons I do not use Eibachs are serious variatons in ride height in the front and sometimes they will drop too low, thus allowing the cambers to be extremely negative. Then when you add potential under inflation, and lack of rotations (not saying this is what happened on your utility) it makes it worse. I have not heard if Eibach makes a camber kit that will allow less aggressive cambers. But there is a company out there that has plates thatr go between the shock tower and the shock mount that will raise the fornt en slightly.

Best of luck

mike
dms

 

[tspain]

These Tahoe's are bad about tire wear at the factory ride height much less lowered. And at 12,000 miles, it's almost due for an alignment anyway.

The tires have to be rotated every 6k miles to keep the wear as even as possible. Plus, they come from the factory with too much negative camber, so add in your lowering, and it makes it even more negative.

Make sure you take it to a good alignment shop and get it aligned, if you haven't already.