I haven't been active on this board for awhile, but I wanted to share what happened with my 04 GTO. Some of you might have had the same problem, but in case you haven't, here's the story:
We took our GTO on a road trip up to Missouri from Louisiana last week, and as soon as we got there I noticed that the passenger side front tire had started to throw cords like it was ready to blow. On the outside the tire looked just fine, but looking on the inside of the tire I noticed the sidewall had completely separated from the tread. Upon further inspection I found out why: over time, apparently the front wheels had started turning inward, causing the tires to rub against the strut. At the time this car had 28,000 miles on it, still had the original tires and rims. This car has never been autocrossed, wrecked or driven very hard (and even if it was, there's no logical reason for this to have happened).
This pic is of the outside passenger side, looks almost perfectly normal...
Here are some pictures documenting the damage on the inside part of the same tire. It's kinda hard to see in this particular pic but look at the steel cords showing all around the top side of the tire.
Observe the tire rub marks on the upper part of the strut. Also note the dark rub spot on the inner fender.
Close-up of the strut.
Here's the driver's side tire. It's hard to tell in this pic but there's premature wear on the inside also - not as bad as the passenger side but it's definitely there.
While I was there in Missouri I ran into a guy who had an Impulse Blue 04, with 15K on it. I took a picture of his inside driver side wheel well to demonstrate what it's supposed to look like. Look at the space between his tire and strut...
Now for comparison purposes, here's the same pic of my tire and strut. Notice how close mine is, there's barely 1/4 inch of space there... :eek
Thankfully the strut repair was covered under warranty and they even threw in 2 brand new factory BF Goodrich tires. The cause of this problem is yet unknown. As said before, this car had 28K on it when this was discovered - it's doubtful many of you have that kind of mileage on yours yet, but it could be just as susceptible someday, so be sure to check for it periodically. If this hadn't been caught in time, a tire could have blown at high speeds with disastrous results. This is just to let everyone who has a 2004-06 GTO know that a potentially serious problem exists. To my knowledge no factory recall has been issued (and don't know if there will be one), so looks like owners will be on their own to resolve this problem if theirs suffers from it like mine did, so be careful out there.
We took our GTO on a road trip up to Missouri from Louisiana last week, and as soon as we got there I noticed that the passenger side front tire had started to throw cords like it was ready to blow. On the outside the tire looked just fine, but looking on the inside of the tire I noticed the sidewall had completely separated from the tread. Upon further inspection I found out why: over time, apparently the front wheels had started turning inward, causing the tires to rub against the strut. At the time this car had 28,000 miles on it, still had the original tires and rims. This car has never been autocrossed, wrecked or driven very hard (and even if it was, there's no logical reason for this to have happened).
This pic is of the outside passenger side, looks almost perfectly normal...
Here are some pictures documenting the damage on the inside part of the same tire. It's kinda hard to see in this particular pic but look at the steel cords showing all around the top side of the tire.
Observe the tire rub marks on the upper part of the strut. Also note the dark rub spot on the inner fender.
Close-up of the strut.
Here's the driver's side tire. It's hard to tell in this pic but there's premature wear on the inside also - not as bad as the passenger side but it's definitely there.
While I was there in Missouri I ran into a guy who had an Impulse Blue 04, with 15K on it. I took a picture of his inside driver side wheel well to demonstrate what it's supposed to look like. Look at the space between his tire and strut...
Now for comparison purposes, here's the same pic of my tire and strut. Notice how close mine is, there's barely 1/4 inch of space there... :eek
Thankfully the strut repair was covered under warranty and they even threw in 2 brand new factory BF Goodrich tires. The cause of this problem is yet unknown. As said before, this car had 28K on it when this was discovered - it's doubtful many of you have that kind of mileage on yours yet, but it could be just as susceptible someday, so be sure to check for it periodically. If this hadn't been caught in time, a tire could have blown at high speeds with disastrous results. This is just to let everyone who has a 2004-06 GTO know that a potentially serious problem exists. To my knowledge no factory recall has been issued (and don't know if there will be one), so looks like owners will be on their own to resolve this problem if theirs suffers from it like mine did, so be careful out there.