My car has recently had it?s first MOT at the main dealership, as part of the service they did a check of all of the fluid levels and gave me a report on the tyre tread depth all round.
I found it interesting to note that although I have a front wheel drive diesel the rear tyres have worn slightly more than the fronts, I was expecting it to be the other way around, the difference was only 0.5mm, is this a sign of something or just normal running?
|
|
The only way I can imagine that happening is if your rear tracking is badly amiss. My car has a very easy life on the motorway, and I get about twice the miles out of the rears as I do the fronts on a FWD diesel.
|
As all your acceleration, and approx 70% of braking is done through the front tyres, this can not be correct.
Could it be they have swaped the tyres back to front before taking the depths?
Even so, I would have thought you would have taken more than 0.5m off the fronts, unless the car is very low milage
MVP
|
|
Check to see if the wear is uniform or just on one of the edges or in the centre.
|
|
Just a thought, did all the tyres start with exactly the same tread depth, 0.5mm also seems a very small margin I would have thought that was within most people's margin for error.
|
My dads 2007 BMW 318d M-Sport has just had a service and they said the inner edges of both rear tyres are getting low. Seems funny that its just the inner edges; I know its rear drive but its only 122bhp so no road rocket. Some people have put it down to having runflats and the setup of the rear suspension. If thats so it doesn't say much for the design. Only done 14000 miles aswell, and the tyres are 255/35R18 so not cheap!
|
|
All the tyres are from new and have never been swapped, the tracking was checked about 6 months ago after the first service and found to be OK, I've done about 30k on them.
|
|
Have you gone and measured the wear yourself to make sure it's not just a mistake?
|
|
|
The fronts have either been renewed before or swapped front to rear during a service, you would'nt get 30K miles out of a front pair on a diesel.
What depth are they now?
|
The fronts have either been renewed before or swapped front to rear during a service you would'nt get 30K miles out of a front pair on a diesel. What depth are they now?
My wifes Diesel Zafira ran the front Michelin tyres for 40,000 miles. The second pair were changed at 38,000 as they looked a bit "tired" and the mot was coming up. Think the rears were changed at 68,000 when one was punctured, so the new (but four years old) spare was fitted, along with one new tyre. Not expecting the new Zafira to match this, going on posts here about Continental tyres on Vauxhalls.
|
|
|
|
All the tyres are from new .......... I've done about 30k on them.
What we're all dying to know is what depth of tread is left.
|
|
|
|
Only done 14000 miles aswell, and the tyres are 255/35R18 so not cheap!
>
>>>>>>are you being serious?
|
|
I'm not surprised that you are getting wear on the inside edges with tyres that wide. In the absence of every other reason (toe setting, boot full of bricks, worn bearings, loosened tie bars) very wide tyres conflict with the camber setup of the rear suspension.
|
BMW 318d M-Sport - 122bhp - 255/35-18
Ha - I bet it's debadged as well ;-)
|
Four tyres can wear at the same rate.
On my Focus 1.8TDCi the two original from tyres did wear out first, which I replaced with two Dunlops.
I then put four Avons on at the same time, and they were all more or less worn out when I replaced them with four Pirellis.
No tracking problems, no swapping, no premature wear, they just wore evenly at the same rate.
|
I wonder what is "normal" life for tyres these days ? I seem to think the most frugal car I've had in terms of tyre wear was a Mk 1 (RWD) Cavalier. Don't think I put any new ones on that in 40k. Conversely my diesel Galaxy ate front tyres in about 10k. The Westfield got through rears fairly quickly but that was my fault really. My diesel Mondeo estate isn't too bad getting about 18-20k on the fronts and 25-30k on the rears and given that it is usually full of heavy stuff that seems OK. The Ka doesn't seem to be too hard on them, at 21k it still has the original tyres as fitted new, the fronts are at about 3mm and the rears still have 5mm.
|
Managed to squeeze 17.5k miles out of my Hyundai coupe fronts. Rears look only 1/3 worn. Passat diesel estate was getting about 10k on fronts and 24k on rear IIRC.
SWMBO tyres seem to go on for ever, only ~6k annual mileage and are changed when they "perish".
|
|
Fronts and rears on my A4 wear at about the same rate.
|
Lygonos- Yep, no badges on it :-) Impossible to spin the tyres either.
|
|
Once owned a Citroen GS and the Michelin ZXs on the rear were originals and only half worn at 78k. Very hard compound and weren't brilliant in the wet. My experience with front wheel drive cars is that the rear tyres deteriorate due to ageing long before the tread wears out
|
Reminds me of my old Cavalier SRi mk2 which I bought with 72,000 miles on it, and it had a pair of old Pirellis on the back which had about 4mm of tread left, but sidewalls that looked a million years old. When I looked it up, I realised these tyres had been out of production since the year the car was built. I strongly suspect these were the original tyres.
Particularly noteworthy on a car which used to eat fronts in about 5,000 miles. The way I drove it anyway ;-)
Abnormal rear tyre wear is usually a sign of suspension problems, normally bush wear.
Edited by DP on 01/05/2009 at 09:56
|
Sorry for the late reply to soome of the BRs questions..
The tread is 4.5mm on both fronts and 4.0mm on both rears, the tread is even across the surfaces, and as I've mentioned they have definately not been changed or swapped since I had the car from new.
I'm not worried as I'll keep an eye on them, just curious as this wasn't what I had expected.
|
All I can think is that the car has been doing most of the braking at the back, as many new cars with ESP+EBA+EBDetc.. do at urban speeds.
|
30K miles on around 3-4mm of tread front and rear.....................................................
In 25 years of driving I've never seen tyre wear even close to that, its close to Michelin XZX of the 70s where 60-70K was possible and grip came a very distant second
|
......most of the braking at the back as many new cars with ESP+EBA+EBDetc.. do at urban speeds.
That sounds interesting. I've no doubt you're right, but is there any chance of you being able to explain the technical reason for that?
|
The tread is 4.5mm on both fronts and 4.0mm on both rears .........
For 30,000 miles, in my experience that's very good for fronts, but not so good for rears. On my cars fronts have always worn quicker than rears. What make and size are they?
|
|
They are Bridgestone Potenza RE050A's, size 225/45 on 17" rims.
|
So basically you're saying that you expect the front tyres on a MK5 Golf 2.0L tdi with dsg to last 60K plus and this is in the UK?
Would anyone else with a similar car care to comment?
I've never had a FWD car that could go much beyond 30K (25K being the norm) on the front and I drive with mechanical sympathy (gentle on the clutch, I've never had to replace a clutch on any of my cars in 25 years) as its me paying the bills / doing the repairs.
|
|
I'm not surprised that you are getting wear on the inside edges with tyres that wide.... very wide tyres conflict with the camber setup of the rear suspension.
My brother used to own a 323i with standard size tyres and they used to wear on the inside. It was all to do with the rear suspension camber, you could clearly see it when you viewed the car from the rear. I've owned cars with tyres wide enough to roll a cricket pitch and never had any uneven wear problems. Must be BMW's ultimate scrubbing machine engineering... ;-)
|
Does anyone remember the old Renault 8 Gordinis with impossible toe-out? When following them the rear wheels seemed to lean in at 30° or so!
Was this just a fashion?
|
|
|
|
|
|
My dads 2007 BMW 318d M-Sport ... and the tyres are 255/35R18 so not cheap!
Do BMW allow 255 section tyres to be fitted to a standard E90?
I had 255s on my (sadly missed) E46 M3. They were the widest tyres allowed and the M3 bodyshell and suspension was modified compared to the standard E46 to allow tyres of this width (not to mention the 8 1/2" wide wheels) to be fitted.
Edited by Bagpuss on 03/05/2009 at 13:15
|
With negative camber, I suppose you could even up tyre wear by providing toe-in.
However I believe the negative camber would produce a steeringing moment at the wheel which the toe in would exacerbate.......... It's a long time since I read all this.
Where's NC when you need him?
|
Fwiw, Golf V 105Tdi :
fronts: Conti 3 OE: 43k, Conti (no nbr): 27k, Michelin: 42k
rear (Conti 3 OE): n/s/r 102k (outside edge wear), o/s/r: 121k.
Passat 110Tdi, Audi 80 Tdi and various Golf IV's, rears all seemed to last around 2 1/2 longer than fronts (often rears were replaced due to punctures).
(However, on the LagunaII Tourer 1.9Dci that I had, its rear tyres lasted only a few thousand longer than the fronts.)
My journeys are mostly motorway, not heavily laden. Pads (front and rear) lasted 103k, so I'm not a heavy braker...
|
|
|
|
|
