eating front tires

about the only thing that comes to mind is: have you checked your front end and bushings out. i have seen shops do alignments and not note (or say anything) about bushings and such that are toast.
perhaps the control arm bushings, etc are gone and allowing the settings to "flex." they can set the stuff to spec while its sitting on the plates, but once dynamics are brought in (hitting brakes causes toe out, etc, full weight of vehicle on front end causes neg camber, etc) and alignment can go bad.
thats all i can think of.
BTW, i have no idea what kinda miles Kuhmo's are good for. i had a porsche that ate rear Pirellis in about that or less.

I had the same problem. I lowered my 2.3 without getting CC plates or a bumpsteer kit, and ate the inner lip of my tires up. It looks like you did the same thing. My Kuhmos and all other tires I've tried did the same thing.

I recently went to an MM CC plate kit and bumpsteer kit, and learned a lot in the process about my suspension/steering system. If you have stock strut mounting plates you basically are forced to have bad negative camber after a lowering job, along with low caster numbers because there is no way to adjust caster with the stock plates. Since you have low caster numbers and badly negative camber, you're ALWAYS riding on the inner lip of your tires (higher caster numbers cause camber to change under turning). Also, you have what I had most likely, a bad case of bumpsteer, when the car's tierod ends aren't traveling in the same arc as the control arm, therefore causing toe changes on bumps and ruts in the road. My 2.3 probably made me look like a drunk driver the way it went all over the road. Your tierod ends probably look like they're angled up a LOT if you lowered your car. Check it out... If this is true, the biggest thing you can do is to invest in a bumpsteer kit. Next, and certainly not less important is a good set of CC plates. Even my alignment shop (guy who races dirt track and has been aligning cars for about 25 years) said he would guess the bumpsteer kit would help significantly...

Here's the link to the 2.3 post that I just made about my 2.3 car, with pics... PM me if you have any questions...

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=408839

Find a new place to get the alignment done. So many "professionals" these days are doing the "set the toe and let it go" alignment. It is a quick and easy way for them to make 60 bucks. When I put my CC plates on my Stang I took it in for an alignment. When I got it back I looked at the front tires and they were clearly leaning way in at the top. Stevie Wonder could have seen it. The "mechanic" said to just drive it like that and see if it wears the tires. I told him that there was no way that was correct. He said that was all they were going to do. I took it to Sears and the guy there set the alignment correctly for less money.

Maryland Stang said:

Find a new place to get the alignment done. So many "professionals" these days are doing the "set the toe and let it go" alignment. It is a quick and easy way for them to make 60 bucks. When I put my CC plates on my Stang I took it in for an alignment. When I got it back I looked at the front tires and they were clearly leaning way in at the top. Stevie Wonder could have seen it. The "mechanic" said to just drive it like that and see if it wears the tires. I told him that there was no way that was correct. He said that was all they were going to do. I took it to Sears and the guy there set the alignment correctly for less money.

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Tis true, but if he has lowered the car with no CC plates, there is little that ANY alignment shop can do to correct for bad camber, and NOTHING they can do for caster... Just my $0.02...

ponycar17 said:

Tis true, but if he has lowered the car with no CC plates, there is little that ANY alignment shop can do to correct for bad camber, and NOTHING they can do for caster... Just my $0.02...

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I agree. If your lowered w/o cc plates there is nothing they can do for you.

Maryland Stang said:

Find a new place to get the alignment done. So many "professionals" these days are doing the "set the toe and let it go" alignment. It is a quick and easy way for them to make 60 bucks.

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That is so true, but a full alignment doesn't pay what it is worth. Many vehicles you have to remove the strut and turn the mount, remove the spindles to add shims, all this for less than 1hrs pay, come on. I work at a Goodyear, but don't do alignments because I hate it for that reason. If I do something, I do it right or don't do it at all, so I don't do alignment, unless I do other front end work. Most alignment "techs" are just a step up from the oil changer guy, sometimes not even that. Most master techs won't waste thier time, and dont' like crawling all over the place.

3 main angles of alignment: Camber, Caster, Toe.
Caster won't wear tires, but has to do with steering effort, and directional stability. If it is off, your car will pull.
Camber can make a car pull also, but not as much so. Negative camber can help cornering stability, and if it wears your tires at an angle that is consistant through the tire.
Toe won't make the car pull, but has the most to do with tire wear. Toe wear is where one edge is completly worn but the rest of the tire appears new. Too much toe out the vehicle will tend to wander, and it will eat up the inside of the tire. Too much toe in the outside will wear out with the inside looking new and the vehicle will have poor steering responce.

Of course there is SIA, setback, thrust angle, ect. but that isn't going to do much with tire wear.

90mustangGT said:

That is so true, but a full alignment doesn't pay what it is worth. Many vehicles you have to remove the strut and turn the mount, remove the spindles to add shims, all this for less than 1hrs pay, come on. I work at a Goodyear, but don't do alignments because I hate it for that reason. If I do something, I do it right or don't do it at all, so I don't do alignment, unless I do other front end work. Most alignment "techs" are just a step up from the oil changer guy, sometimes not even that. Most master techs won't waste thier time, and dont' like crawling all over the place.

3 main angles of alignment: Camber, Caster, Toe.
Caster won't wear tires, but has to do with steering effort, and directional stability. If it is off, your car will pull.
Camber can make a car pull also, but not as much so. Negative camber can help cornering stability, and if it wears your tires at an angle that is consistant through the tire.
Toe won't make the car pull, but has the most to do with tire wear. Toe wear is where one edge is completly worn but the rest of the tire appears new. Too much toe out the vehicle will tend to wander, and it will eat up the inside of the tire. Too much toe in the outside will wear out with the inside looking new and the vehicle will have poor steering responce.

Of course there is SIA, setback, thrust angle, ect. but that isn't going to do much with tire wear.

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Wow! Thant's a lot to take in. Very informative. Thanks for the lesson.

"eibach progressive springs, kyb struts/shocks"

Right there is the problems! KYB suck. You are not using aftermarket CC plates that have a spherical bearing to locate the strut. Also many aftermarket spring lower the mustang more than 1.25" . What this does is the A arm is below parallel to the ground causing a huge loss of camber and will make the car handle worst.

So bottom line to fix the problem, buy some MM, J&M or Griggs CC plates and get a performance alignment on the car. Also with the 180K on the car, get all new bushings for the A arms and steering rack.