Tires: Premature, uneven tire wear, alignment shop, tire alignment

Question
Hi Barry,

I have a tire/alignment issue that I hope you can help me solve regarding my 2007 Honda Civic.  The dealer noticed that the R rear tire was almost bald and the L rear was badly worn (this is at 38k miles).  The tires were especially worn on the inside in an uneven pattern.  The front tires were in fairly good shape.

Dealer told me it's a well-known problem with that generation of Civics and it's due to bent rear control arms.  They said they could "repair" the L control arm by bending it back into specs, but that the R one definitely needed to be replaced with an adjustable control arm.  Cost for replacing both = $800.  They said they couldn't even align the back tires until this was done.

Today I took the car to an independent alignment shop for a second opinion.  This is after getting all new tires last week.  I told them there was a control arm problem, they said, NOPE, the control arms are fine, not bent at all!  Said it was an issue with the camber and toe, and proceeded to align the tires without an issue.  Supposedly I shouldn't have the same tire wear problem now that I had before.  We will see.

I'm just so confused!  Who should I believe?  Either the dealer was totally wrong or these other people aren't realizing that there is more to this problem than simple alignment.

Can you offer any insight?  Thanks!!!

Answer
Karen,

The first shop told you that something expensive needed to be done.  The second shop said that it didn't need to be done and that they could fix the problem at a cheaper price - even after you told them that someone else had recommended that expensive fix.

does it not seem reasonable that if the second shop were trying to extract money from you, they had the perfect opportunity - and didn't take.  that says to me that the second shop is being honest.

Now the other part of this is:  You need to be rotating your tires every 5K to 8K - otherwise you will get the kind of wear you described.  This is not an issue with the alignment as much as it is that tires will naturally wear a bad pattern into a tire if left in the same position for too long.