I just paid $100 bucks for my first 4-wheel alignment on my 2008 Mazda3. The service folks at Lou Fusz Mazda in St. Louis, MO say that the rear alignment just barely makes the specs. My lousy TOYO tires (standard equipment) have worn out in record time due to a severe toe-out problem. This is one very disappointing problem with a car which is known for quality! Does anyone else suffer from excessive tire wear from suspension problems? My car has 34K miles with no accidents!

Dougritt

 

I had excessive rear tire wear but due to rear toe-in alignment. I bought a used 2005 3s hatchback and the owner had Kumho Esctca (sp?) and which had noticeable toe-in wear. I just replaced them [all 4] with new Dunlop signature Sport and had Goodyear do a 4-wheel alignment ($73). All checked out to well within specs according to the printout report they provided me with. They stated that it should hold. Too few miles on my Dunlops to tell just yet if the toe-in problem returns.....will post if it does.

 

i also bought a used 05 mazda 3 hatch with kuhmo ecsta spt tires and there is excessice wear on the tires due to the rear being out of spec, the tires are directional so they can only be rotated front to back and the passenger side it wearing really fast, im gonna buy the spc adjustable camber arms so the camber can be easily adjusted

 

My 3 has the toe-out problem! I noticed it the other day. I know the car needs struts and shocks in a bad way could the rear shocks be part of the issue?

Oh . . . 2006 3s and this is my first post on this forum.

 

I have a SP3 and the back tires are set with a negative camber /\ . This makes the inner tread wear unevenly and cup compared to the outside of the tire. When I rotated my stock tires at 15K the front tires howled. I read somewhere on this site that the negative camber is done on purpose for cornering and handling. The suspension is not adjustable but you can buy adjustable aftermarket suspension parts to correct this. Don't know if the same applies for the standard 3.

 

I also previously owned and RX-* and it had the same rear suspension setup.

 

i have the same issue. i hope the alignment will fix t he problem.... i feel the same way, thats a shitty problem for a car of this stature

 

I had a rear suspension problem with the camber being negative. The inside of the tires wore out very quick. I bought an aftermarket camber alignment kit from SPC and fixed the problem.

 

Yes this does seem to be a common issue, like the last post I think you do need to readjust it, though see how it handles around turns before and after the adjustment. The stock suspension may be adjustable enough to get this camber issue resolved, mine isn't wearing enough to be a big deal, so i'm not worrying about it. But it is wearing more on the inside at the rear, and outside at the front - reason #1 to rotate tires, even though the factory shouldn't allow this kind of crap.
Someone at work has a CX7 I think, and they have lots of tire wear issues. And in a previous job I worked with Jaguar, that has this issue on the front tires. Just a bad specification that the factory and alignment specs are off to wear out your tires.

 

I'll have to pay approx $500 to get my 2010 Mazda 3 rear wheel out of alignment corrected (left rear camber out -1.90, right rear out -1.0). Replace both side camber arms with the after market products because the OEM are not adjustable (the tech told me this problems are common with Mazda 3 and 6). The car has only 14K miles but it is annoying due to tire road noise roaring and floor vibration (at 40mph and up). All 4 tire inside edges are cupping worn (why all 4 because rotation at 7K and again balanced and rotated at 14K). After this I have to ge new tires too. Talk about disappointing...

 

Yes. I have 2010 Mazda 3 and it will cost me approx $500 to replace the OEM non-adjustable cam arms with the aftermarket ones. Then I have to replace with new tires too. The car has only 14K miles now.

 

you may want to have them try an alignment by loostening the bolts, and allow the slop in the holes to move and see how close that gets the alignment. I had a maxima that I replaced some parts on, and was suprised how much alignment can be changed by the exact bolt location. Something to try, which is a far cheaper option to start off with.

 

I tried the bolt trick - which worked on previous vehicles... but mazda has the nuts tack welded in place, which is a great idea if they are in the correct place to begin with. But there's no slop in the bushings... so I pulled the lower arm and the outer side of the upper arm & drilled them out to 1/2". Due to the lack of clearance around the upper arm while its attached on the inside (that bolt is hard to remove) I used drill taps (1/2-13 and 1/2-20) to remove a lot of material, then a bare drill bit with vice grips by hand. That got enough slop so they are pretty much the same camber as the fronts - which should fix the wear issue.

 

2010 Mazda3 s-sport sedan - Just got a set of new tires, car only has 15K on it. Tires were bald and unevenly worn on the inside, same problem as all of you good folks. The dealership says this is due to the negative camber on the front and back which it is manufactured with. so even if your alignment is to the factory specs, the factory specs are to have negative camber, so you will still have to buy new tires every 25K, doesn't matter the brand. Mazda does this on purpose for handling, and it will always wear out your tires. This is junk and very depressing. However, if I tamper with the camber, I will be out of warranty for messing with the car.

 

If you're paying for tires... get a camber kit, then put the stock stuff back on if it's a lease.
I haven't completed my camber adjustment since I didn't have a good way to measure it until it got cold out - so next warm spell when i've got time to mess with it i'll be drilling away to straighten it up.

As for handling - i'm suprised that tire manufacturers don't produce asymmetrical tires - with a tapered design to match the camber of the car. I know BMW and others i've seen have the same negative camber - not sure how their tires wear though.