Odd tire wear on the MINI, suggestions?

Tires on the MINI has started to make a whomp whomp whomp noise the last few months, under there last week for an oil change I noticed uneven wear on the fronts. Drivers side had significant outside wear, passenger had significant inside wear. Finally had a not so busy week so I pulled them off to rotate them. This is what I found.



Drivers front, had this weird square channel worn into the inside. Oddly it didn't go all the way around, there was a 6 inch or so patch with tread all the way across. That's probably the noise, but why did it wear this way, why not all the way across? Defective tire maybe? I've kept a decent eye on tire pressure but haven't checked in the last couple months.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...psqryxcwjt.jpg


Same tire, the normal worn section.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps4hfsneou.jpg



Both rears had significant cupping on the inside.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...psppkbskg4.jpg




The only thing I can find searching is the following suggesting bad ball joints or bent suspension members causing cupping
http://www.procarcare.com/includes/c...dtirewear.html

and this one suggesting bad shocks.
http://www.northamericanmotoring.com...tire-wear.html

The car just hit 40k miles so I don't think either, but could a hosed alignment be responsible for this kind of wear? I flick it around on a few of the loop exits, and I occasionally slalom the center reflectors on an empty road on the way to daycare, kids love it. Might be the cause, but I do a lot of straight driving, and very little of the 'fun' driving, not like it's being autocrossed.

The car has H&R lowering springs and had a performance alignment at COBB before I bought it last year. Someone I won't name did hit one of the small rounded curbs at the airport, but handling wasn't affected so I thought the alignment is still good, maybe that cost me a set of tires. I don't think the springs are stiff enough to kill the shocks this fast.

At this point the fronts are hosed, after rotating all 4 tires the car pulls to the right a lot. Going to replace the rears next week and look into an alignment. I'm hoping the rears will wear smooth on the front and quiet down, but I'll probably have to replace them soon anyway.

Reason i'm asking here is online articles seem to point to a mechanical failure that alignment won't fix for the rear cupping, but car is still new enough I doubt it. I know we have a lot of tire experts here and some MINI drivers.


Thanks in advance.

Oh one more question. Anyone have experience getting a 'good' performance alignment on a MINI? Since they're so tight twitchy handling cars i'm assuming they suffer similar alignment issues as miatas - being picky about shoddy alignments. How difficult is it to get a 'good' alignment on a MINI?

Talk to Argentinian madness about getting an alignment, he is a tech at MOD. I would wager that your issue is alignment, and is worsened by the lowering springs if you don't have adjustable LCA's in the back. My reading suggests that the rear camber becomes excessive with lowering.

I've also decided that the Mini doesn't like tire rotation. After less than 5k miles on stock suspension and a mini-recommended performance alignment spec, rotating the tires made the car pull and had tons of tire noise. I just swapped them back and decided I'd live with shorter tire life.

I had a similar experience on the nc once it was lowered significantly and had an aggressive autox alignment. I still got 2 years (25-30k) per set of V12s, and the fronts had enough life remaining to sell for a few bucks and cover my mounting costs. I consider it part if the cost of ownership for softer tires and a sporty DD.