Anyone having allignment fron wheel problems??

[Mich M]

Yesterday I had my snow shoes put on my 35i, when they pulled off my run flats the tire guys said I likely have a front end allignment issue since for only 5000 miles my front tires are chewed up and "cupping" I havent felt anything that would suggest an allignment prob the only thing I did notice last week was some noise going downhill. The dealer tried to get me to pay for an allignment today...needless to say I am ticked off since I have only driven this car 2000 miles--the dealers wife drove it prior to me buying it with 2700 miles on it. I left the dealer today and made my husband call an argue. I think they are going to take care of the issue (they better) I have to go back tmrw. Has anmyone else had this prob???
Yes I live in Ohio but I do mainly highway driving and there was no sign of an allignment problem because of course I would have taken it in.

[watoowatoo]

Same thing actually happened to me. One of the tires in the front is worn out unevenly. I have 20000km on the car but I had the dealer check my car at least twice after every 7000km but they never mentioned anything about this.
I took it to the dealer last week and they said I need to buy new tire to do the alignment properly! I have 20" Dunlope and it is expensive. So I said no till I get my winter tires on.

Someone at a tire shop told me it is unacceptable for the car and tire to be like that after just 20000km.
My question is: Should I bring the car back to the dealer and demand new tire + alignment from them? Is it mentioned in the manual that I had to do alignment and I didn't?

[teagueAMX]

Originally Posted by Mich M

Yesterday I had my snow shoes put on my 35i, when they pulled off my run flats the tire guys said I likely have a front end allignment issue since for only 5000 miles my front tires are chewed up and "cupping" I havent felt anything that would suggest an allignment prob the only thing I did notice last week was some noise going downhill. The dealer tried to get me to pay for an allignment today...needless to say I am ticked off since I have only driven this car 2000 miles--the dealers wife drove it prior to me buying it with 2700 miles on it. I left the dealer today and made my husband call an argue. I think they are going to take care of the issue (they better) I have to go back tmrw. Has anmyone else had this prob???
Yes I live in Ohio but I do mainly highway driving and there was no sign of an allignment problem because of course I would have taken it in.

My dad was a car salesman years back and told me a story about a dealer's wife who every couple of months picked out a new car, used it for a while and got a new one, etc. When I read your post my first thought was maybe this dealer's wife has habit of running into curbs with the new cars.

But. . . even though it's possible that the problem is alignment issue, if your SA properly described the problem as "cupping", it's more likely that you have a damaged or defective shock absorber (or other suspension part). See the first couple of pics and the description I grabbed off the net. The other two show typical symptoms of a bad alignment.

The last pics are for actual common alignments problems.

.