SWMBOs 2011 Golf has just passed the MOT. However, it's got an advisory for wear to the inner edge of all four tyres.
Garage is suggesting that the wheel alignment is out and should be checked. Not expensive and probably worth doing, but my feeling is that in all probability for a car which spends a lot of time in urban areas, the wear to the inner edges is probably a direct result of all the ruddy speed bumps around here. What do you reckon?
Will have to get SWMBO to adopt 'the hat wearers' recommendation of not straddling the speed bumps and crossing them with one wheel in the middle of the hump and the other well to the side.
|
My money would be on the speed cushions.
Some particularly nasty ones appeared a good few years ago near here, and shredded the inside edges of the tyres on my old Scorpio to the point where wires were visible while the visible tread was still deep.
|
|
Speed humps. Saves no pedestrians but kills driver and 4 passengers when tyre disintegrates due to hidden damage!
|
|
Unless you spend all your time driving on speed humps they are unlikely to contribute the majority of the wear.
|
I agree. As with supposed wear from turning the steering while stationary, it's hard to picture much wear resulting unless you do either to an extraordinary extent.
If the tyre wear is simply an even shaving of more rubber on the inner section of the tread then then it's incorrect camber angle, or perhaps lowered or sagging suspension.
If it's wear with feathering, as if shaved at an angle with a rasp, then it's too much toe-out.
It's said that town driving on cambered roads wears the inner edge of the nearside wheels - picture driving half in the gutter - but not the offside.
|
>> Unless you spend all your time driving on speed humps they are unlikely to contribute
>> the majority of the wear.
>>
But not as unlikely as all four wheels having excessive negative camber.
|
Speed humps won't wear the tyres directly.
They will though affect the wheel alignment.
So the same answer, the wheel alignment needs checking.
|
>> Speed humps won't wear the tyres directly.
I assure you they can.
Clearly it will depend on the profile and the material they are made from. About 17 years ago Bucks CC put about a mile of speed cushions, fashioned from tarmac, on a well used B road near here - the main route from Aylesbury/Aston Clinton to Dunstable. I used that route every morning.
After a few months of this I had an MoT and the wear, and protruding wires, were spotted. There was at least 4-5mm of tread on the rest of the tyres. The fronts were the worst but it affected all four.
I replaced the tyres and changed routes. The wear didn't occur before the cushions appeared, or after I stopped driving over them.
They have since been replaced, after numerous complaints, with much milder versions.
I don't think the front camber is even adjustable on the golf, although it could be the toe or worn bushes.
I don't straddle speed cushions now, except the rubber ones in the wet. Never suffered the inner edge wear on any car since.
|
>> >> Unless you spend all your time driving on speed humps they are unlikely to
>> contribute
>> >> the majority of the wear.
>> >>
>>
>> But not as unlikely as all four wheels having excessive negative camber.
much more likely than the driver hitting the speed cushions in exactly the same place every time with all 4 wheels every time. Cushions that probably make up 0.001% of the driving surface traveled on.
|
>> much more likely than the driver hitting the speed cushions in exactly the same place
>> every time with all 4 wheels every time.
She doesn't have to, it will average out perfectly.
The percentage of distance is irrelevant. My wife wears out front tyres by twiddling the steering wheel when stationary, which involves no distance travelled at all.
Consider also the suspension movement as the tyre mounts the cushion. There's plenty of abrasion going on.
My suggestion is that the OP gets the alignment done, and she carries on straddling the cushions he can tell us what happens. Alternatively, don't get the alignment done, and stop straddling the cushions.
|
>> She doesn't have to, it will average out perfectly.
No it won't. visual parallax error caused by the angle of the driving position off centre inevitably means the driver will favour one side.
|
>>
>> >> She doesn't have to, it will average out perfectly.
>>
>> No it won't. visual parallax error caused by the angle of the driving position off
>> centre inevitably means the driver will favour one side.
As long as both tyres are on the side of the pyramid it will make little difference.
Your turn.
|
|
then one side will be worn more than the other. Is it?
|
>>
>>. My wife wears out front tyres by twiddling the
>> steering wheel when stationary,
But otherwise she drives perfectly, and does not mistreat the tyres or steering in any way? I'd have thought there would be a lot of wear in the steering rack central position.
Remarkable. Monotwiddlephilia is very rare. Most people who compulsively twiddle with things will twiddle with anything that moves.
I twiddle with biros, cutlery, paperclips, for example
|
>> But otherwise she drives perfectly,
According to her, yes.
|
'Monotwiddlephilia is very rare. Most people who compulsively twiddle with things will twiddle with anything that moves.'
Clitwiddlephilia. I'm on pills for it.
|
>> 'Monotwiddlephilia is very rare. Most people who compulsively twiddle with things will twiddle with anything
>> that moves.'
>>
>> Clitwiddlephilia. I'm on pills for it.
>>
Are they blue, sort of lozenge shaped and inscribed "Pfizer"?
|
>> Unless you spend all your time driving on speed humps they are unlikely to contribute
>> the majority of the wear.
Guy is used to work with several years ago kept getting wear on the outer edge of his nearside front tyre. He had the tracking, and a 4 wheel alignment carried out which showed everything was in good order.
Turned out what caused the wear was that the drop down kerb outside his house wasn't in the right place resulting in him driving over it half way up instead of the bottom of the drop down edge whenever he parked up on his drive. Weird that his rear NS wheel which also drove over the same kerb didn't have any abnormal wear.
Don't people in Milton Keynes suffer unequal tyre wear because of all the roundabouts?
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 10 Nov 17 at 08:52
|
|
My area is heavily infested with speed bumps and cushions on residential roads. None of my cars have had abnormal tyre wear. I have a minimum of three to go over to get to a non bump fitted road. So that could mean a couple of dozen a day (two journeys each) before we go anywhere, unusual but it does happen.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 10 Nov 17 at 09:02
|
It's surely possible to do a calculation to prove this speed hump tyre wear effect, if true?
How many miles does a tyre do?
What is the comparative distance of actually traversing speed humps?
Guessing here - 40,000 miles on ordinary road surface.
50 speed humps per day, 2 feet of travel per hump, therefore 50 X 2 X 5 X 49 = 24,500 feet per annum X 3 years (?) = 73,500 feet of total tyre life = 14 miles.
Even if you assume that the tyre wear is 10 times as great because all the weight of the car is on the inner edge, can you really actually see the relative extra wear caused by the minute speed hump component of a tyre's mileage?
(E&OE - I haven't checked the figures, they're just off the top of my head)
|
Yes, it can't be the speed humps themselves causing the wear directly.
They must either effect the alignment or cause the suspension to extend or compress so the wheels are splayed and it takes a few yards for it to sort itself out, rather like when you drop a car off a jack.
|
My daugter's Hyundai i40 Tourer (Diesel) has just had a service at a little under 10.000 miles from new. The dealer reported that both front tyres were down to 2mm on the outside edges, but the middle tread was OK at 4mm.
It seems a bit soon, from new, for the tracking to be out: she blames the rough country roads in Northern Ireland.
I don't think she ever checks the tyres!
|
>>
>> It seems a bit soon, from new, for the tracking to be out: she blames
>> the rough country roads in Northern Ireland.
>>
The tracking could be out after 100 yards from new if a big pot hole or a kerb is hit.
The tyre wear is even on both tyres so sounds like a characteristic of the car. Not great tyre life though.
|
The only way I can see that speed humps / bumps / cushions can cause any car damage is if you hit them too fast.
I flat out don't believe they wear tyres directly, and think they will only impact steering & suspension if there is a significant impact.
Rather irrelevantly, when you jack a car the wheels "splay" in, rather than out, surely.
|
>> Yes, it can't be the speed humps themselves causing the wear directly.
You stick to that view.
I've done the experiment.
|
What did you do? Drive for a couple of thousand miles across speed cushions, then change your tyres and drive a couple of thousand miles with no speed cushions and compare?
How much difference was there?
|
|
Manatee, no doubt it's a result of driving over the speeds cushions though it's not the cushions themselves doing the abrasion.
|
|
Modern cars I've looked under seem to have very flimsy suspension components. I'm not surprised that driving too fast over speed bumps causes damage. You don't have to distort a wishbone much to change the camber angle significantly.
|
>> What did you do? Drive for a couple of thousand miles across speed cushions, then
>> change your tyres and drive a couple of thousand miles with no speed cushions and
>> compare?
>>
>> How much difference was there?
As posted above:
Clearly it will depend on the profile and the material they are made from. About 17 years ago Bucks CC put about a mile of speed cushions, fashioned from tarmac, on a well used B road near here - the main route from Aylesbury/Aston Clinton to Dunstable. I used that route every morning.
After a few months of this I had an MoT and the wear, and protruding wires, were spotted. There was at least 4-5mm of tread on the rest of the tyres. The fronts were the worst but it affected all four.
I replaced the tyres and changed routes. The wear didn't occur before the cushions appeared, or after I stopped driving over them.
I don't think it is out of the question that a speed cushion made of something abrasive, as the ones in question were, could abrade the tyres at a very high multiple of the normal wear rate. They were absolute sods, too wide, too high, and clearly fashioned by eye with the back of a shovel. I have never seen the like anywhere else.
The rubber ones are probably not nearly as bad, although I suspect that suspension wear is a problem too with any kind of hump, cushion or speed table taken at sufficient speed to deflect the wheel rapidly. I am amazed at the speed some people take these things, but not at the number of bushes and ball joints they have to replace.
|
|
So not really an actual "experiment" then?
|
|
It wasn't designed as an experiment, no. Do you think I am a complete nutcase?
|
>> It wasn't designed as an experiment, no. Do you think I am a complete nutcase?
Don't you be trying to catch me out with your trick questions!
I just picked up on "I've done the experiment".
|
>>I just picked up on "I've done the experiment".
Well I sort of did. I didn't have the problem before the cushions, and I didn't have it after I stopped traversing them, even though I did not have the alignment looked at.
The wear was all on the edge/corner, through to the steel. They must have had 4mm across the rest of the tread.
|
Really though?
I mean they are f. annoying and f. badly planned, but I just can't see how 3ft every 2 miles can have that much impact on your tyres.
|
|
Never seen anything like it, literally wires coming out on the fronts. There were probably 12 or 15 of the cushions, and they were not too uncomfortable when straddled.
|
I live in Cheshire, swathes of which are still fairly Cromwellian. As such, all manner of "calming" measures are in place where it has not been pedestrianised.
To escape from where we live, an alleged "executive estate" ( aka most of them are something in IT and have fat wives with 4x4s ) there are only two possible routes, a short one down a pretty, but narrow and winding lane bordered by medieval cottages but desperately festooned with speed humps, or, a longer one through a council estate that has adequately wide roads. My wife, being something of an arriviste and in denial of the existence of the council estate, chooses the short but pretty route, not only having to negotiate the numerous hurdles, but constantly having to stop or reverse to allow oncoming traffic to pass, on what has, due to parked cars, become a single track road.
I though, choose to dash through the council estate which has not yet been sullied by the speed humps and I can, as a by the by, prove that although it's at least half a mile longer, it is considerably quicker on most occasions.
Anyway, the ever so slightly vague point here, is that my wife's tyres wear more on their inside edges than mine do. Not specific to one car either, it's just always been that way since we moved here. Ergo, or maybe ergo anyway, speed humps, or the regular negotiation of them, do indeed unusually wear the inside edges of tyres.
Possibly.
|
>> denial of the existence of the council estate, chooses the short but pretty route, not
>> only having to negotiate the numerous hurdles, but constantly having to stop or reverse to
>> allow oncoming traffic to pass, pick up wing mirrors on what has, due to parked cars, become a single
>> track road.
|
>>
>> >> denial of the existence of the council estate, chooses the short but pretty route,
>> not
>> >> only having to negotiate the numerous hurdles, but constantly having to stop or reverse
>> to
>> >> allow oncoming traffic to pass, pick up wing mirrors on what has,
>> due to parked cars, become a single
>> >> track road.
>>
It always astonishes me how many folk driving modest cars seem to think their vehicles are twice as wide as they are.
The sight of a parked car on a decently wide road, quite enough to accommodate three cars abreast, causes so, so many timorous beasties to come to a halt at the sight of an approaching car.
It irritates me if I'm behind them and forced to stop because they have no sense of lateral space.
NB - my wing mirrors are unsullied by contact!
Last edited by: Roger. on Sat 11 Nov 17 at 22:44
|
|
As I said above it is not the speed cushions that significantly abrade tyres, rather the action of passing over them either affects the alignment or causes the suspension to extend or compress so the wheels are splayed and it takes a few yards for it to sort itself out during which time the tyres wear excessively.
|
>>an arriviste
I had to look that up :)
>>speed humps, or the regular negotiation of them, do indeed unusually wear the inside edges of tyres.
So, without having to search for my well-used copy of the Kama Sutra, what is the best way to mount a hump then.
|
>>what is the best way to mount a hump then...
I've always been more than open to new suggestions on that...
;-)
|
|
Don't mount the rough ones at all is my maxim.
|
|
Or, if you inadvertently do, never admit to it.
|
|
they all look the same in the dark, its only the next morning you know what rough ones you have mounted.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 12 Nov 17 at 10:09
|
All four tyres worn on inner edge - Manatee
