Rear alignment and tire wear

[thermometer]

I recently went 10,000 miles without a tire rotation. I was gettting a funny whining noise from the rear of the car, so I brought my Vibe to the local tire shop. Both rear tires were worn on the inside. We put the car on the alignment rack and it was within GM specs, which actually called for the camber setting to be slightly "tilted." Does anyone know if the standard GM Vibe alignment spcec can cause this type of wear on the rear tires and why would the spec call for this type of setting? Thanks for any information.

[Mavrik]

Well 10,000 miles without a rotation combined with the type of driving you do can wear tires out like that... specially if your on city streets where its all hollowed out you know from the traffic.

[ragingfish]

Going 10,000 miles without rotating tires - regardless of how dead-on your alignment is, will wear the heck out of any tire. You really can't take the tire wear of 10,000 miles in the same tire position as a sign of an aligment issue...

[Mavrik]

RANCH!!!!sorry Mike, your avatar... I hate those commercials... Anyway... back on topic.

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by Mavrik »RANCH!!!!sorry Mike, your avatar... I hate those commercials... Anyway... back on topic.What's that from, anyway? I don't watch TV but I have been wondering.

[ragingfish]

It's a new string of Wendy's ads.

[djpositivek]

Quote, originally posted by ColonelPanic »What's that from, anyway? I don't watch TV but I have been wondering. What do you mean, you don't watch TV ? I thought everyone watched TV ? I don't know what I would do without my TV.

[ColonelPanic]

Nope, seriously, no TV. Haven't had cable for 4 years now. And I haven't watched any TV at all since last fall. I don't miss it at all. Anyway, on a related (but exactly opposite note:) What about if your rear tires are wearing on the outside? Noticed that with mine. Both sides, on the extreme outer edges of the tread, well, there used to be tread there. I've kept them rotated every other oil change, which would be every 6,000. Sorta. Last winter, I took the stock 16"s off, marked where they went, and put on my snows... Put the 16"s back on where they came off when the spring rolled around. I didn't get them rotated right off the bat though, so I did put a few more miles on them than I normally would have. But I would guess that they had no more than 8K on them before getting moved to the back where they are now. I don't recall seeing them wore the way they are now before they were moved to the rear, but I can't say for sure. I keep the tires at 35 psi all the way around like I have from the beginning.Is there even any "alignment' they can do with the solid rear axles like the base cars have? I thought that the only suspension setup you could do any alignments to would be that of an independent variety... Which only the AWD'ers have...The back end of my car is all screwed up anyway, even at "stock" height, I'm scraping on all kinds of things I NEVER used to, so I know for starters, I have some weak shocks/struts/whatever back there at the least. God knows what else is messed up there, probably beginning to see suspension damage reveal itself from where this Vibe fell off the assembly line/truck/whatever before it came to me. (removed)!Soo, would it be more likely that my funky tire wear was caused by me being a slacker and waiting a couple extra thousand miles before rotations, or is something jacked elsewhere?