You guys need to find a mechanic with one of those old style alignment boards since the lasers are not working very well

 

I originally posted this 2.5 years ago, when I had 96k miles on the car. Now at 160k. I had the car laser aligned before the Coopers and they wore badly. Had the alignment checked again and it was spot on. Forced Discount Tire to replace the Coopers with Continentals and they are wearing fine, although I don't have a lot of miles on them. However I did go through my second set of Pirellis (amost 60k miles on them before replacing them) and have 17k on the third set of Pirellis. I did have the car laser aligned again before the third set were mounted at 143k (that's almost 50k since the last alignment). I have not replaced any suspension parts and tire wear is normal.

 

Didn't even pay attention to the date of previous posts...sorry!
So were the Coopers with the fault all along, huh?
When I bought the car a year ago, it came with Michelin MXVs that had about 45-50% left when I looked at it. 2,000 miles later after the back home drive I looked at them and were worn badly on the inside - both of them, you could see the cords! It turned out the TREs needed adjustment, as they were loose...
When I put the Contis on 5,500 miles back my old gentleman mech friend aligned the front via an old "rolling" board, adjusted the TREs and the darn tires still look like new.

 

Well I think my problem is fixed. About 5000 miles on the new tires and all seems well.
http://www.blauparts.com/proddetail....1102%2D02%2D1A
I replaced the entire front suspension and it seems to have done the trick.