Front tyres on the Xantia were almost down to the limit so replacements were sorted for last Saturday. As recomended the new Michelin Energys went on the back and the half worn backs came forward.
The fitter had a good look at the old tyres and so did I; no apparent problem. However as soon as I drove away the car felt quite odd. Slight nearside pull, mild shimmy evident on lock and a disconcerting vibration reducing with speed.
Investigation and an attempted re-balance revealed that one of the tyres moved forward was distorted. Two more Michelins fitted and all is now restored to normal. Even off the car I could not actually see what was wrong.
The car actually felt dangerous. I'm not at all sure it would have behaved predictably in an emergency and I certainly was not prepared to let daughter drive it until sorted. Wonder if I'd have noticed if symptoms had appeared gradually?
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Good to see someone who realises that money spent on tyres is well spent, they are (after all) rather important in turning and stopping.
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>>>>>car felt quite odd. Slight nearside pull, mild shimmy evident on lock and a disconcerting vibration reducing with speed.<<<<<<
You sure that wheel nuts on nearside front wheel had been fully tightened.
Just had same symptons on my vehicle after service. All wheel nuts on front wheel had not been fully tightened.
dvd
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Last time I encountered this, it was due to the rear tyres being ancient (10yrs or so and only half worn) - a static examination made them look ok - if you spun the wheel you could see the tyre rising and falling as they had become more like 50p pieces than 10p!
Horrific wobbling in the steering from very low speeds - thought the car was going to die - new tyres it was good as new.
Another good reason to rotate rears to front more frequently as there must be a fair number of FWD cars out there at 10yrs/80k+ miles with original tyres on rear wheels that are way past their best.
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>> You sure that wheel nuts on nearside front wheel had been fully tightened.
>>
>> Just had same symptons on my vehicle after service. All wheel nuts on front wheel
>> had not been fully tightened.
Been there, done that etc. I watched the fitter like a hawk and made sure the nuts were torqued as well. I will re-check them myself after a few miles.
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...new Michelin Energys...
Bromptonaut,
Inevitable question - how much?
I only ask because I inquired about tyres for the CC3 when I had a puncture repaired recently.
Michelins were £190 to £200+ each.
I've always reckoned you can't get a better tyre.
But that sort of money is hard to justify when branded mid-range tyres are less than half the price.
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IIH,
Formula 1 in Northampton charged £195.36 a pair all in (size is 205/60 R15 H). Was offered BF Goodrich for around £10 a corner less but they've a directional tread which I don't like as it's a pain when swapping around iiior if it eds up as the spare.
Given that these are the OEM recommendation & will probably see the car out I'm happy
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 27 May 10 at 18:21
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...see the car out I'm happy...
So would I be.
I'm not keen on paying much more than £100 a corner if I can help it.
I will look a bit harder in a month or two when the tyres on the CC3 will be in need of replacement.
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Now this is all very interesting. I will share my very recent experience. Octavia tdi. I recently had a rear wheel bearing changed as I had the classic whining/humming, speed dependant etc. I thought I'd traced the noise to n/s/r There was no noticeable improvement. To cut a long story short, I swapped the rear 35000 mile Firestones onto the front and hey presto - steering wheel vibration and very loud whining noise from the front. A careful examination of the tyres reveals that they have worn on the inside edges in a "saw tooth" pattern, which I've never seen before. If I run my fingers up against the tread pattern it's really obvious. But I'm pretty sure this is the cause of the noise. 4 new tyres coming up and I'll report back. Pity, because those Firestones would have been good for another 10000 miles at least. Has anyone else ever heard of this problem?
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...rear 35000 mile Firestones...
Don't you have corners in your part of the world?
I will be lucky to get 20K out of the OE Pirellis on the CC3.
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South Wales/Monmouthshire - plenty of corners! I do seem to get quite good mileage out of tyres. My neighbour with a Saab struggles to get 10000 miles out of the fronts, while I'm currently on 21000. Don't understand it!
Known problem? Actually it's Octavia 1, but I guess similar chassis. That must mean it's common to Golf/Leon platform as well?
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>> Has anyone
>> else ever heard of this problem?
>>
I have heard of "feathering" which may be what you have experienced, caused by wheel misalignment.
EDIT:- Google "tyre wear" for an example.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 27 May 10 at 18:58
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Baz, rear tyre wear like you have experienced is a known characteristic of the Octovia 2. Its something to do with the angle of the tyre on the road (can't remember the technical term - could be castor but wouldn't swear to it)
Last edited by: Alastairw on Thu 27 May 10 at 19:09
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Yeah skoda revised the alignment settings because of this. Think Alastair's right it's a change to castor
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Must be that marvellous suspension Brompton, on most cars you would have felt the tyre distortion at the back end.
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GB
Retrospectively I think I was aware of it.
I've said before here and in the other place that my old BX didn't wear its rear tyres until 'bubbles' appeared in the tread. Given that the Xant is to some degree a derivative and has a similar trailing arm rear sus layout I'd expect the same problem. However, even after sensing some drumming type noises from the rear(?), I could not feel any oddity on the tread and convinced myself it was probably transverse ridges or expansion joints in the road.
Mrs B drove it with the dodgy tyres at the front and said there was nowt wrong. I wish I were more convinced I'd have picked it up at the front if it had appeared gradually.
How many other folks are driving on dodgy but legal tyres?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 27 May 10 at 21:30
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>> Baz, rear tyre wear like you have experienced is a known characteristic of the Octovia
>> 2. Its something to do with the angle of the tyre on the road (can't
>> remember the technical term - could be castor but wouldn't swear to it)
>>
Caster is the angle to which the steering pivot axis is tilted forward or rearward from vertical, as viewed from the side.
Camber is the angle of the wheel relative to vertical, as viewed from the front or the rear of the car. If the wheel leans in towards the chassis, it has negative camber; if it leans away from the car, it has positive camber.
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>>Camber is the angle of the wheel relative to vertical, as viewed from the front or the rear of the car. If the wheel leans in towards the chassis at the top of the tyre, it has negative camber; if it leans away from the car, it has positive camber.
Hope you don't mind st.
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This explains all aspects of steering geometry. www.simpsonmotorsport.co.uk/uploads/files/SuspensionSetup.pdf
Last edited by: L'escargot on Fri 28 May 10 at 07:08
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>> Hope you don't mind st.
>>
I never mind people adding to information I give, or even correcting me when Im wrong!
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>> To cut a long story short, I swapped the rear 35000 mile Firestones onto the
>> front and hey presto - steering wheel vibration and very loud whining noise from the
>> front. A careful examination of the tyres reveals that they have worn on the inside
>> edges in a "saw tooth" pattern, which I've never seen before. If I run my
>> fingers up against the tread pattern it's really obvious. But I'm pretty sure this is
>> the cause of the noise. 4 new tyres coming up and I'll report back. Pity,
>> because those Firestones would have been good for another 10000 miles at least. Has >> anyone else ever heard of this problem?
>>
I had *exactly* the same on a Peugeot 406 years ago. Company car on a 3 year lease and the lease company always fitted Firestone tyres after the originals wore out as they lasted longer.
We had to get the cars MOT'd before they were returned and mine failed at a Peugept dealer. The MOT tester had gone home when I arrived and the effect on the tyre was so subltle that it took the service manager some time to see what was wrong. I took the car to Kwik Fit and their MOT tester was astonished the car had been failed.
The "wheel bearing" noise that had been present before went away once the tyre was changed.
I was never happy with Firestone tyres due them being considerably harder than OEM tyres and they made a significant difference to the wet grip of the car. Bear in mind that these were hard driven company cars. I got our fleet manager to agree that tyres on company cars should be changed like for like in future.
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As I have posted before in another place, I took over a Mk4 Golf for a short while - it made horrendous road noise and there was a bearing-like drone. Looking carefully at the tyres showed they had worn like motorbike trials tyres - alternate high and low tread blocks, a bit saw-toothed also. Changing the rears got rid of the bearing noise, but there was no way the leasing company would change the fronts.
I later had a 51 Mk4 GTTDi 110 from 20k to 100k miles - the back oe tyres at 93k had worn into an odd out-of-round shape, again with saw-tooth, though not nearly as bad as the first Golf.
(In contrast, the rear oe tyres on my MK5 TDi Golf lasted 100k and 120k, with no such saw-tooth or out of round wear problems)
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Just to update all for future reference. Completely resolved by 4 new tyres. No more whines, vibration, harshness, to be honest it's taken years off the car. And all the tyres were legal regarding tread but clearly worn very oddly to cause the problems experienced over the last few thousand miles.
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Once had a noise on the old Omega which two or three separate mechanics diagnosed confidently as wheel bearings. Actual cause was the tyres were no longer round. Yet they still had quite some life in them (Avons IIRC)
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The CRV has done 8000 mls. I thought about rotating. Went to tyre fitter who i know and another tyre fitter was there who i also know quite well actually. Cutting a long story short, they both said yeah ill do the rotation but be aware when you need new tyres youll be replacing all 4 not just a pair. I never even thought of it that way so i left as is.
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...new tyres youll be replacing all 4 not just a pair...
I rotated the tyres on the CC3 with the predicted result that all four will wear out at the same time.
Not sure if there's any advantage either way - the overall rubber consumption must be the same.
I might be able to get a better deal on four tyres rather then two, and it does mean I will keep the same boots all round.
Marginal benefits, I feel.
Last edited by: ifithelps on Sat 12 Jun 10 at 06:41
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Brentus, assuming the CRV is 4WD i'd want to rotate and keep the rolling radius as near as possible the same on all corners keeping transmission wear to a minimum.
I'm with Iffi here, i prefer to replace in 4's if poss.
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I too prefer to change all the tyres at once. And that the fronts wear about twice as fast as the rears.
I found the easiest way was to buy (off ebay) a second spare wheel which I keep in the garage. I have the same rubber on all six, and only swap the fronts with the two spares from time to time - much easier than taking every wheel off the car!
I guess the downside is that I'll need six tyres come renewal time. But as the tyres on my 4x4 seem to last about 50,000 miles that won't be for a while.
If I should damage a tyre or an alloy offroading, I can simply revert to 1 spare.
Last edited by: Tigger on Sat 12 Jun 10 at 07:40
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Tyre Woes - idle_chatterer
