I say we should take Honda Motor company to court. File a Class Action Lawsuit!
My Brother and I each bought new HCH's in 2007. My brother noticed a problem with the handling on his vehicle at highway speeds about a year after the purchase. He thought it was a steering problem and was afraid to drive the car anymore, so he called Honda and informed them. Honda sent a tow truck to take the car to a Honda dealership. The knuckle-head tow truck driver did not check whether the emergency hand brake was engaged and towed the car with it on. That fried the cars rear brake shoes, drums, bearings etc. Honda refused to take responsibility, first saying the tow truck was operated by a sub-contractor. Then they changed their story and insisted that the damage must have happened earlier - insinuating that my brother must have been driving with the emerg brake engaged!
My brother filed a case with small claims court and Honda finally was forced to pay. But they just covered half the expense incurred. My brother was fed up by then and did not pursue it. Later he had his tires replaced due to uneven wear. Nothing was ever mentioned about this TSB. No more Honda's for either of us. We have had it with them. I have had good experiences with Toyota before so it'll be Toyota from now on. Everyone I know, will also be given this info and advised to avoid Honda.
Some of you might wonder why my vehicle did not have the same prob's. I happen to be a sailor so I drive it very little. Just took it in for an oil change to Honda dealership and the Tech recommended alignment due to uneven tire wear! No mention of the TSB. Lucky for me I googled the problem and stumbled onto this forum. Thanks for this great thread. I will keep you guys posted about my car as I have called in today and made appointment for tomorrow.

 

I had new rear control arms installed on my 06 Civic and I still have the tire wear problem

I ran into the tire wear problem as well with my 06 Civic. To make a long story short, here's what I went through:

At 25k miles, my rear tires were shot. Honda referred me to Firestone to have them replaced (prorated). I had a wheel alignment done at the same time.

At about 50k miles, the 2 rear tires were shot again. With some internet searching, I found out about the service bulletin. Honda replaced the rear control arms at no cost to me.

Assuming the problem was fixed, I never checked the tire wear until recently, when I stared to hear the tell tale sounds of cupped tires. I inspected the rear tires again and the tire wear problem still exists!

It really frosts my butt knowing all the money I save in fuel is having to pay for tires!

 

I had the exact same experience. I abandoned the Honda warranty and installed adjustable rear camber control arms. I then set the rear camber at 0.0 degrees and the rear toe to 0.0 degrees NO LOAD. That was about 36000 miles ago, no more abnormal tire wear. We are snowbirders so we load the suspension heavily for extended mileages, that was the biggest problem with the Honda settings. IMHO

 

Can you supply a link or give us a pointer to the aftermarket control arms?

For the record, I've been managing this issue on my wife's '07 Civic Hybrid by not rotating, except when the rear tires wear out. She puts on 22-24K miles per year. Since the first set of rears went, I stopped rotating altogether. When the rears go bad, I toss them, move the fronts to the back, and put the new tires on the fronts. I end up doing this about every year, and so get 45-48K out of each pair of tires. Not ideal, but close enough to normal to live with.

Personally, I'm biased against rotating tires, anyway (for any car). You actually give up some traction/performance by rotating (tires needing to adjust to new load/demands for the new position), and unless you're doing it yourself or getting it for free, it's simply not worth the cost (and probably not worth the hassle, doing it yourself). Add up how much your spending over the life of your tires on rotation, and ask yourself whether you're extending their life enough to justify the cost. You can easily spend the cost of one or even two tires in rotation expenses.

Better to save the money on rotation, and instead make sure you keep on top of alignment and addressing any other issues that may cause excess or uneven wear.

Anyway, on the Civic, I actively avoid rotating, rather than simply not pursuing it, and I think that effectively maximizes tread life.

 

I used 3rd party camber arms from SPC Performance P/N 67470 "REAR CAMB ARM 06UP CIVIC" and my Canadian $ Cost was CDN205 each. See www.spcperformance.com. They are easy to install, use a level that will reach and seat at rim to rim to adjust them to 0.0 degrees camber. After you have done this it will probably be easier to take it to an independent alignment shop. But if you have the time and want to get involved you use a Laser Level seated horizontally on rear rim and projected to front rim. You will find the rear wheels track wider then the front wheels and this is important to know because I think this is where alignment problems creep in. It may because they are thinking the rear wheels track in the same path as the front wheels. I used two 2x4s, one at the front and another at the rear set at axel height to run some nylon fish line around the perimeter of the car to figure out the tracking width of both front and rear, divide the difference in half and you have how much wider the rear wheel is than the front wheel. Then you have you laser resting against the rear wheel hit that spot away from the front wheel. Hope you get my drift. If you do use an independent alignment shop try telling the alignment guy about the front wheels track inside the rear wheels, you may get a better alignment if he is made aware of this fact. Also, the rear wheel track changes with the camber so make sure you have the camber at ZERO degrees before you start the above. Good luck. Rest assurred, it can be fixed.

 

civic2001,
Thanks for the info and the link on the aftermarket control arms! I'm going to have to look into doing what you did to fix the problem!

jsg,
I agree with you on rotating tires. I believe that if you rotate your tires, you may be covering up problems (like the issue on this thread). However, if I only buy 2 new tires, they always go on the front, and the old ones go to the rear. Other than that, I've never rotated the tires on any of my other vehicles and I've never had a problem with them.

 

I know the service bulletin says it excludes the Si, which is stupid because the same problem is wearing down the tires quickly as well. Has anyone had any success with the dealership in possibly getting the problem fixed anyway?
We just bought new tires today, and the guy at the tire place said that this car wears down tires fast whether you get cheap ones or awesome quality ones. I had no idea this was the case, and it's pretty sad.
We have a 2007 Honda Civic Si sedan.

 

I just called Concord Honda and they are fixing my si for FREE. it is an issue with the control arms...

 

The control arm they will use reduces the camber from -1.5 degrees to -0.75 degrees. That did not fix the problem on our 07 Civic EX so I bought the adjustable camber arms and set the camber to 0.0 degrees. Then I set the toe to 0.0 degrees and my problem was fixed. I have 40,000 miles on the current rear tires and they are still in good shape but getting close to the wear marks, at least the wesr is now even.

 

Just to confirm, I installed the adjustable control arms (2007 Ex) in April 2009 and it is now Oct 2013. That was 70,000 miles ago and my rear tire wear has since been normal.