Left Front Tire - Excessive Wear - Drive Wheel

It is easy to find forum posts that argue that paid tire rotation and easily cost more than it saves.

I accepted that paradigm and I find that the left front OEM tire on my 2012 Leaf has worn much faster than the others.

I had the unfortunate experience of loosing my left front tire to a pot-hole at 7 miles on the odometer.

Today, at 22,975 miles driven, I paid $120 to have the alignment checked by a reputable mechanic. He reports essentially nothing wrong with the alignment:

Before
Camber (left then right) -0.4°, -0.6°
Caster (left then right) 4.9°, 4.7°
Toe (left then right) 0.03", 0.09"

After
Camber (left then right) -0.4°, -0.6°
Caster (left then right) 4.9°, 4.7°
Toe (left then right) 0.03", 0.06" (the only change)

He asked if the left front wheel is the primary drive wheel. I did not know. I tried searching and I still am not sure. If this is significant, could it cause more rapid wear?

Here are the particulars on all 4 tires

Leaf tire DOT #s EL 8K

RF EL 8K JBC0312 16-22 Jan 2012 2nd replacement inner face of tire
RR EL 8K JBC4111 9-15 Oct 2011 OEM outer face of tire
LR EL 8K JBC4111 9-15 Oct 2011 OEM outer face of tire
LF EL 8K JBC3511 28 Aug - 3 Sept 2011 1st replacement outer face of tire

I believe this says that all 4 were made at the same Hikone tire plant.

I can easily post a composite image of all 4 tires taken earlier this year. The wear is obvious. I tried and found to instructions for including one.

I think I've sorted out how to use Imgur to post an image



The image url is

http://imgur.com/K0oHpgi

It shows up between the HTML codes for the image, but it is not in the post. PS says it is sized at 720 x 469 pixels. I hope this works.

If it shows up (it did not in a preview) the most worn tire is the one in the upper right corner.

Am I the only person to see this wear phenomenon?

I find it odd that a mechanic would ask this... The Leaf uses a differential like most all other cars and thus drives both wheels more or less equally...

baumgrenze said:

He asked if the left front wheel is the primary drive wheel.

Click to expand...

I have the same problem. At 26k miles, my left front tire is no longer street legal, while the others are fine. Not going to blame the Ecopias-- I drive the car like I stole it, so I'm going to blame the driver. Rotated the tires when I bought it, 4k miles ago.

I thought, but could be wrong, that the left front tire is the 'drive' wheel, like a slip differential. I drive alot on gravel roads, and notice that when I punch it, the left tire might spin and the right one won't. That impression could be from my sitting position though.

I just bought a used one to replace it-- $10, and will keep a closer eye on tire wear.

Actually both my front tires wear much faster on the outsides than the rest of the tire. I was told to rotate the tires to help this but IMO all that would do is to wear the outside edges of the rear tires...I had the vehicle aligned at Nissan(at my cost as it was a month past warranty :x ) and they said they were "a little" out of alignment, but "nothing too bad". They corrected it and I put the mostly new rears on the front. FF 12k miles and now I'm starting to see the outside edges of the old rears wear faster than the rest of the tires, although maybe not as fast or bad as before. Note I used to run 38lbs on my tires but now run the max 44, I'm thinking that may have more to do with the replacement fronts lasting longer than anything else.
The rears are now almost bald and the fronts don't look so hot either so I just ordered an new set of 70K Ecopia +'s from Costco, a tad under $500 installed, lets see how long they last........I really wanted to get the Michelin Defenders(90k warranty) but really talked out of them because of worse LRR, and most threads around here see to agree although apparently after the break-in period it's not supposed to as bad. They were $60 more for the set of 4.
Note I'm not sure if the left(drivers) tire is wearing any worse than the passenger side but I do notice it more since thats where I get in and out from.....

I guess I must be an "outlier" regarding tire wear on the Bridgestone Ecopias:

I'm now at 5 1/2 years/over 33K miles on my original tires on the 2011, which I purchased new in June, 2011. I've been running with 40-44 lbs PSI since new, and rotate my tires front-to-back (same side) every 8000 miles. I've never had the alignment checked or adjusted. By the looks of the tire wear at this stage, I figure I will get at least another 5,000 miles before replacement. I bought a new set of Ecopias from Discount Tire on line about a year ago (they had a really great sale price at the time); but they're still sitting in the garage. Go figure???