Vauxhall Owners Forum banner

rear tyre wear problem

4K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  dangermousecav 
#1 ·
Hi, I have an Astra mk4 2000 16v 1.6. I suddenly realised that my rear tyres have no tread on the inner edges of both. The outside edges on both are hardly touched and I was wondering whether anyone could tell me what could be wrong.:)
 
#2 ·
Do you carry a lot of weight in the back of the car?

How long have you owned the car?

If there isnt a lot of weight in the boot and you havent owned the car that long then I'm guessing your wheels have been on the front of the car at some point and been swapped to the rear. Probably due to the front wheel alignment being out and wearing the inside of the front tyres, what are now fitted to the rear.

You find normally that your tyres on the front will wear the edges and on the rear they wear evenly so a lot of people swap them around every 3months or so to get even tyre wear and the full life out of their tyres.

Might be worth getting the vehicle 4wheel aligned and see if the car is running true:)
 
#6 ·
Thanks for replying. No, I have had the car 6 years now and have absolutely no weight in the back and nothing has been lowered. The tyres were new about 4 or five months ago. The only thing that has changed is the tracking, though I doubt this has anything to do with it, although I don't really know what the man did. My fronts were scrubbing (can't remember which edge) so when I got new tyres I told him to fix it. He said it was as close as he could get it although it was between teeth. I told him it was costing me a fortune in tyres so he said he would sort it for me. Subsequently the fronts are ok but the rear ones are wearing now. I am reluctant to think this has anything to do with it but you never know. Could he have adjusted something to make the fronts ok but the rear ones out?:nod:
 
#7 ·
When you had the alignment done did he use the gauge's on the front with the back flags on the rear wheels or just gauge's on the front?

If he's just used the front gauge's he's only set the front wheels parallel.
If he used the four wheel alignment kit there's a good chance that he didnt reverse the gauge's first.
When using the four wheel alignment kit, you have to reverse the gauge's so to speak and set the gauge's backwards to see if there's any toe in or out across the rear wheels. If there's a difference then you have to compensate the difference through the alignment of your front wheels. It all sounds very confusing but its really simple,.

The problem is that most people just plonk the gauge's on and set the front wheels parallel with the rears and this is wrong. It can result in your car crabbing and causing excessive tyre wear all round.

Check the bushes all round on front and rear and if there fine, there's a good chance its an alignment issue:)
 
#8 ·
Unfortunately, I disappeared when he was doing the alignment so I don't know what he did or even whether he used 2 or 4 wheel tracking. But it sounds pretty much that he may have used the 4 wheel system and not compensated for the back wheels. I will check the bushes next. Thanks, that was really useful information.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top