The start of 'Sawtooth' rear tyres? vRS Estate 2010 year

[s2rv]

Hi all,

I have noticed recently that the rear tyres on the family vRS estate (59 plate) seem to be getting noisy. I have been underneath the car and took a couple of photo's, (see attached) Is this the start of 'Sawtooth' inner edges?

If so, are these the new settings I need for the alignment?

CAMBER -50' -10' (max -1 DEGREE) or on RS chassis -1 DEGREE 15' -5' (max -1 degree 20')

TOTAL TOE IN +10' -2'

TOE IN DIVIDED LEFT +5'

TOE IN DIVIDED RIGHT +5

(Found elsewhere on this wonderful site! Thanks to OP)

Also, for quite a few journeys we have 2 boxer dogs in the boot, one weighs 40kg (Bunjo aka Tank) and the other weighs around 30kg (Barry aka little man)-(see final picture), now, I don't understand car suspension too much and how it works, but would a greater weight in the boot (see above) over the rear axle cause the sawtooth to be worse? Is it worth getting the camber decreased a little more to compensate for the increased weight? so that the tyres run 'flatter' on the road? (I guess this means less likely to feel like being on rails going around a corner) or does car suspension always make the tyres run at the same camber/angle to the road no matter what the weight of stuff (dog) in the boot? (Ie compression of suspension) Ie does the wheel move up and down under load or does it follow an arc? hope that makes sense....

I hope a knowledgeable person can shed light on the above and help with the settings and if my understanding of car suspension is correct-more likely to be incorrect.

Thanks for your time and input.

(Tank and little man also say thanks for helping)

[FUBAR]

No idea about tyres but Tank looks like a beast!

[Sarge]

Sawtoothing happens on the inner edge and is best felt for rather than looked for. Run your hand round the tyre edge. With sawtoothing it will be smooth one way but not the other - like running your hand across a saw blade. Not that I would recommend that! What I think your photo shows is uneven wear but not sawtoothing. I had sawtoothing and it seems to have been largely sorted with re-alignment. But I do have some uneven wear which seems to resemble your first picture.

Sarge.

[s2rv]

No idea about tyres but Tank looks like a beast!

'Tank' is actually the quieter of the 2 dogs, 'little man' has a complex and is the fighter, tank is the lover not the hater.....

[s2rv]

Sawtoothing happens on the inner edge and is best felt for rather than looked for. Run your hand round the tyre edge. With sawtoothing it will be smooth one way but not the other - like running your hand across a saw blade. Not that I would recommend that! What I think your photo shows is uneven wear but not sawtoothing. I had sawtoothing and it seems to have been largely sorted with re-alignment. But I do have some uneven wear which seems to resemble your first picture.

Sarge.

Thanks for the info, I won't put my hand over a saw blade just yet...... I thought it was sawtooth starting as the car was beginning to sound a little noisy from the rear and I thought possibly the tread pattern was making the noise. When the car was bought it was put on a 'hunter' machine, I presume it was aligned to the correct tolerances, but, unfortunately I don't know if it was the updated settings or old settings, looks like I'm going to have to get it checked over and see what the'geometry' place says. Just thought having 2 quite chunky dogs in the back may effect things over time.....

[Aspman]

Mine wears the rears like that. It's not as bad as the saw toothing that some complain about but by the time the rear need replaced the inner edge it pretty knackered. I've not been in for geometry checks.

I think some tread patterns are noisy on the rears because of this. Mine are quite loud right now despite the rears being pretty new with little wear. And I don't have cash to play around with new tyres. When the fronts wear out I'll swap and try a different pattern on the rear.

Inner edge wear is an issue on lots of cars now with wide low profile tyres.

[s2rv]

Mine wears the rears like that. It's not as bad as the saw toothing that some complain about but by the time the rear need replaced the inner edge it pretty knackered. I've not been in for geometry checks.

I think some tread patterns are noisy on the rears because of this. Mine are quite loud right now despite the rears being pretty new with little wear. And I don't have cash to play around with new tyres. When the fronts wear out I'll swap and try a different pattern on the rear.

Inner edge wear is an issue on lots of cars now with wide low profile tyres.

Thanks for the response, I've had other 'sporty' cars and not had any of them make the noise of the vRS and they have quite a lot of camber on the rears-both being BMW's, one a 330d with runflats on and now my new m135i which has non runflats but with sticky super sport tyres on, both of these have 18" 245 tyres on a 35 profile. I think that the settings are slightly wrong on the vRS, but still wonder if having the 'lumps' of dog in the back quite a lot of time I should run less camber. The pattern of the tread on the inner edges does look as if it could be making the noise, as it isn't overly loud, just enough to be noticeable. I may swap the tyres over and see what happens there as I have got different brands on the car.

Again, cheers for your input, greatly appreciated.

[M11UKR]

If you have cheap brand tires on the car than sawtooth is common think but I give you 100% garranty when you put a good brand, I'm not saying best brand tires instead with a good alligiment you will be fine . I had a same issue with my Boxter recently... By the way, friend if mine put 4 expensive 18" Conty on his Toyota Avensis and got all 4 tires sawtoothed from all adges in 5-6K, I did not ask him if he got alligiment on the car recently....

[s2rv]

If you have cheap brand tires on the car than sawtooth is common think but I give you 100% garranty when you put a good brand, I'm not saying best brand tires instead with a good alligiment you will be fine . I had a same issue with my Boxter recently... By the way, friend if mine put 4 expensive 18" Conty on his Toyota Avensis and got all 4 tires sawtoothed from all adges in 5-6K, I did not ask him if he got alligiment on the car recently....

Cheers for replying, the tyres on the rear of the vRS are the standard oem tyres, the tyres on the front are Hankook Ventus v12 Evo (which have been great btw), looks like I'm going to have to spend some money and get the alignments checked...... and see if the alignment place can advise further, thanks for the info...

[Aspman]

It's the geometry you need to check. You've been on a Hunter rig so that should have worked but another poster here had been on a Hunter rig and the operator was rubbish so it was still all out.

[lol-lol]

It did seem to be that certain brands of tyres were much more effected.

The Dunlops were certainly the main brand accused I seem to remember and some with Bridgestones which were very hard, hard wearing.

After all the problems with our OE Sport Max tyres then after moving to Michelin PS3s I have not seen the problem again.

Geometry was a bit of a red herring. It was really horrible once the rears were half warn, really spoint the drive.

Rotating the wheels helped for a while, Skoda say you should do this every 10K anyways, but getting rid of the poor OE was the quantum change.

Shame Skoda do not always put premium brand tyres espcially on their premium vehicles just to save a few Euros on production, "spoiling the ship for a hapeth of tar."

Edited 6 May, 2013 by lol

[s2rv]

It did seem to be that certain brands of tyres were much more effected.

The Dunlops were certainly the main brand accused I seem to remember and some with Bridgestones which were very hard, hard wearing.

After all the problems with our OE Sport Max tyres then after moving to Michelin PS3s I have not seen the problem again.

Geometry was a bit of a red herring. It was really horrible once the rears were half warn, really spoint the drive.

Rotating the wheels helped for a while, Skoda say you should do this every 10K anyways, but getting rid of the poor OE was the quantum change.

Shame Skoda do not always put premium brand tyres espcially on their premium vehicles just to save a few Euros on production, "spoiling the ship for a hapeth of tar."

The Octavia has done 39k on the rears so far, which to me is quite a lot of miles, plus looking at the tread that's left and discounting the odd wear on the inner edge, potentially the tyres could do another 10-15k-maybe it's just the tyres are really hard, combined with the tread pattern and I am just experiencing what others have done so before.

I still think I will get the geometry checked (hopefully I can get this done within a week or so) and maybe get the camber adjusted too as I still don't understand the band that's starting to appear as I check tyre pressures regularly (which I guess rules that out) so again, camber comes back into the mix, as it can be quite noisy and I'm all for looking after the tyres on cars and not wearing them out just for a lack of 'maintenance' and if they do another 12 months or so they will need to be changed around the same time as the fronts too. The rear tyres are Dunlop SP Sport 01.

Thanks for your help with the problem. Hopefully I'll report back in the future with my findings and possible solutions......

[lol-lol]

The rear tyres are Dunlop SP Sport 01.

Thanks for your help with the problem. Hopefully I'll report back in the future with my findings and possible solutions......

Ditch the Dunlops, get some Michelins, or perhaps Barums or something else good.