Can anyone explain tracking/alignment to me? (tyre wear issue)

[a11y]

OK, I've just had new tyres fitted after the last tyres did this:

This was the front driver's side. The front passenger side was similar but not quite as bad.
Wear is on the inner edge.
Remaining tread was still above the legal requirement.
Car is on standard suspension.

I'm still trying to get my head around alignment/tracking/etc, but if I had to guess at it I'd say there's too much negative camber, but my suspension isn't adjustable for camber so I'm stumped

Any suggestions?

Cheers
Ally

 

[m0rk]

are you running it too low?

by raising the suspension your camber will decrease

 

[mrcoyote]

A lot of the Mk4 Ibizas did that out of the factory for some reason. Luckily it was picked up on my first Ibiza at the service otherwise I wouldn't have noticed.

 

[deezal]

A lot of the Mk4 Ibizas did that out of the factory for some reason. Luckily it was picked up on my first Ibiza at the service otherwise I wouldn't have noticed.

Same here, at 20K service they told me the inner edges were worn away but restb of tyre was like new. Hard to spot .
Anyway I had the wheels aligned and tyres have been wearing perfectly since

 

[a11y]

Cheers folks.

m0rk - nah, standard suspension. Wish it was lower.

I found this: http://www.familycar.com/Alignment.htm. Think it's either too much toe-out (front wheels pointing like \ / rather than l l ) or something funny with the camber (too much negative). Still under warranty but I know a good garage near me who I trust more....

Got to sort an issue with my new tyres first: I think I've been sold a batch of the dodgy "Made in Thailand" non-EU approved Goodyear F1s - basically not a legal tyre for use in the UK due to a different compound. Waiting to contact Goodyear but damn bank holiday today...

Cheers
Ally

 

[Yella Beeza]

Always worth checking the tyres, especially the fronts, regularly. After all, it's the only contact a car has with the road. The fronts will wear first on a FWD car.

Have got to admit I would never let my tyres get in that state without noticing. Should have been picked up a while ago that something wasn't quite right.

Did you get your new tyres from the same place that did the tracking? If they've sold you dodgy tyres, I wouldn't trust them. Get it rechecked. Take it to a smaller independent garage and ask them to show you what they are doing. If they can't explain how it works, take it elsewhere before you end up with another pair of worn fronts!

 

[a11y]

Only bought car 4 weeks ago, tyres looked fine then and I've never had a problem with any of the other powerful FWD hatches I've owned regarding uneven tyre wear (CTR, Clio 172). Discovered this 2 weeks ago, kept the car off the road from then until I got the new ones fitted on Saturday. I obviously don't have a clue who fitted the previous set of tyres but they've not done something right I guess...

Long story regarding buying/fitting the Goodyear F1s. Father-in-law works in the trade, got me the tyres from a tyre wholesaler (Scotyre) in Broxburn. We fitted them ourselves using one of his mates premises. But we shouldn't have been sold the tyres in the first place if they're not legally supposed to be on sale in the UK.

I'll be on to Goodyear in the morning then a call to the wholesaler. If they don't play ball then it'll be trading standards next shout. Seems to be a lot of people been hit be this across several forums of "performance" cars and from what I've seen everyone got sorted out eventually.

 

[mgrays]

Similar story of front P-Zeros doing this .. 14k not nice by 17k a few pot holes had actually punched holes through rubber into steel belting under main tread.. then long strips could shred off tyre .. someone else here had these strips wrapped around their brakes/driveshaft! Hard to find the fault as the strips fell back into the tyre when you stopped.

There is some adjustment in suspension due to loose holes on subframes etc.. but you can only do this with 4 wheel alignment which is 6 times more complex than plain tracking (which is a subset of 4 wheel alignment). Mine is going in on Wednesday for this. I was going for F1 but the non EU approved tyres put me off.. mytyres would not respond to emails on this.

Interesting the last Golfs used to do this all the time and the dealers swore blind it was perfect as Seat dealers do .. I suspect it is all down to poor alignment and soft bushes (comfy) which deflect under power/braking to allow the alignment to move into a really bad wear positions.. but this is all beyond a "bolt on replacement parts" OEM dealer; thought is not rewarded for 90% of them.

 

[Nath.]

is this what you are after or do you want diagrams ?

http://www.artsautomotive.com/thealignmentstory.htm

 

[mgrays]

4 wheel alignment done after similar tyres to those posted.. 2.5 degrees of toe out and thrust angle wrong .. did not really do a full 4 wheel alignement as they had no figures in the machine to check against and no real adjustment other than for toe.. But anyway... +/-1 degree of toe is factory setting at front which sounds quite wide to me.. used to +/-0.5 degree tolerances on my other car.

Await to see how the Next set of P-Zeros last...

 

[goble]

they all do it as they run quite a bit of negative camber, and are set up like it for the handling.
you should think yourself lucky as lcr's normally last 10,000 miles

 

[fuey]

maybe worth a quick read, if not, just looking at the pics makes sense.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=4

 

[muddyboots]

Mine did the same. Too much toe-out, got them aligned properly and problem went away.

It's easy to say "I'd never let my tyres get as low as that", but when the rest of the tyre is still deep with tread and only the very inside edge that you can't see wears down, it's very easy to miss. Mine got down to the banding in the tyre, and I only noticed when I was in the south of France

 

[a11y]

is this what you are after or do you want diagrams ?

http://www.artsautomotive.com/thealignmentstory.htm

maybe worth a quick read, if not, just looking at the pics makes sense.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=4

Cheers guys, I also found the following the other day which cleared things up a bit for me: http://www.familycar.com/Alignment.htm

But I think the link posted by fuey is even clearer – it really explained why toe-out is a good idea on FWD cars (I couldn’t get my head around it before reading that!).

 

[a11y]

they all do it as they run quite a bit of negative camber, and are set up like it for the handling.
you should think yourself lucky as lcr's normally last 10,000 miles

I agree, a small amount of negative camber does wonders for the handling. IIRC I had -1.5deg camber and 0’10 toe-out (I think that's the way to write it) dialled into my Clio. I was a bit suspect of having toe-out as you’d think it’d sacrifice a tiny bit of straightline speed (it does apparently), but it really helps sharpen the turn-in. Didn’t seem to affect tyre wear much.

 

[a11y]

Mine did the same. Too much toe-out, got them aligned properly and problem went away.

It's easy to say "I'd never let my tyres get as low as that", but when the rest of the tyre is still deep with tread and only the very inside edge that you can't see wears down, it's very easy to miss. Mine got down to the banding in the tyre, and I only noticed when I was in the south of France

Glad it wasn't just me


Good news on the dodgy tyres I had fitted though. The non E-marked (illegal) tyres I had fitted on Saturday are getting replaced with genuine E-marked (legal) Goodyear F1 GSD3s this weekend, FOC. Once they’re fitted I’ll get the car booked in for a full alignment set-up at the place I’ve used in the past – the bloke was the one who first explained the ins and outs of alignment to me (which I forgot LOL) and has a great reputation on lots of Jap tuner forums. Fingers crossed by getting the alignment checked I’ll find something’s been completely out and simply sorting it will cure the tyre wear issues…


Ally

 

[a11y]

Just an update:

Last weekend I got the dodgy non E-marked Goodyear F1's exchanged for a set of 4 Yokohama Parada Spec 2's. I've never tried them before so I'll reserve judgement on them, but the tyre place couldn't sell me any more Goodyear F1's as they were returning their entire stock of them AFAIK...

And getting new tyres finally meant I could get the alignment checked - I'd booked the Cupra into Progrip in Bonnybrigde this morning, excellent job. John - the owner - is also a car nut and I spent a good while just chatting too. In the end he found that my car was running too much toe out at the front, so that's now been sorted. Camber was fine at both ends too.

John concluded that a combination of the toe-out with the 0.5 deg negative camber at the front, could have caused the tyre wear in the pic in my first post, if the owner was running incorrect (too low) tyre pressures. I've disregarded any advice in the manual(!) and am now running 36f/32r in my 215/40/17s and it felt pretty good today on a short drive.

Fingers crossed that's it sorted now, but I'll keep an eye on the tyres very closely from now on...

Ally

 

[Yella Beeza]

I always run a bit more in mine as well. Usually 2-3lbs more than what they recommend as normal.

Last car I had (Astra SRi) needed new front tyres at about 12K, mainly because the wife hit the kerb and ended up putting a bulge in one of them. There was a bit of wear in the outside, but not too bad. That was Pirelli P6000 205/50.

If the fronts start to wear, swap them with the backs if you don't intend keeping the car before all four wear out.

 

[Diablo559]

mine does the same even when it was standard i now have it lowered with fk coilovers could do with a new set on the front at 23000 miles still using the same tyres on the back . Ready to go on to my forth set on the front should really get it cheaked out. I am thinking of changing in january i love the car but don't know what to get next.

 

[DEAN0]

Don't forget that the rear bushes on the front wishbones of the 130TD1 sport and FR TDi are crap.

They have voids in them and allow the wishbone to move around.

This causes TOE OUT to be added during thottle and TOE IN to be added during braking.

With the torque of the diesel - the car is allways going TOE OUT when you boot it and killing the tyres.

Get the bushes at the back of the front wishbones changes for the solid rubber ones from the CUPRA TDi.

Between the bushes and the 4 wheel tracking I now see much less wear on the tyres.