Mickhill

By the way, you are the first to recognise the “step cut” in the shoulder of the tyre. That’s what shocked me most and why I titled the post “never seen tyre wear like this before”.

The first thing the guy at ATS checked was for something rubbing the inside of the tyre but there is nothing. I have had new tyres fitted and no similar problem has presented itself. The more I think about this the more I’m convinced this is a manufacturing defect with the budget tyre.

Thanks for all your input. It certainly shows that there are so many variables to consider that it ain’t easy getting to the bottom of this. I always thought I was pretty good at looking after my vehicles and keeping them in safe condition but perhaps I should think again, particularly in respect of tyre checking. Perhaps 3 years and 50,000+ miles is too much for a car to do before it has it’s first MOT, main dealer serviced or not? Perhaps I need to revert to my old pencil tyre pressure gauge? From what you have been saying it seems to me that you think this is more a pressure / alignment issue than a tyre manufacturing defect. Is that correct?

I have always set to 2.2 bar using a digital gauge for accuracy. 2.2 bar is what is recommended for the car when lightly laden - it’s usually only me in the car. When I do a check every couple of months I have usually only been finding the pressures to have dropped by about 0.2 to 0.3 bar. It was usually the affected tyre that had dropped the most i.e. 0.3 bar which I wouldn’t normally have thought would be significant. However as these are 40 profile tyres with a very pronounced square shoulder, perhaps 0.3 bar is sufficient to cause outer edge wear. What puzzles me is the outer edge isn’t worn anywhere near as bad. I have now increased the pressures to the “eco” setting of 2.5 bar which has made an already hard ride even harder but I have noticed an improvement in economy. When taking it steady I have been achieving 60mpg according to the computer, when the best I was regularly getting at 2.2 bar was 52mpg.

I’m not surprised that the tyres need changing. In fact I am surprised how well both the original tyres and the budget tyre have lasted. What I am surprised about is the frightening excessive wear to the inside edge of one tyre and I’m trying to get to the bottom of the cause so I can stop it happening again. I suppose you need to see the tyre in the flesh to see how bad it is. It looked absolutely fine when viewed from the side and tread depth looked ok and even across the whole width. It was only when I crawled on the floor and viewed the tyres from the inside that I could see the horrendous wear.

I do mostly motorway miles which is fairly easy on the tyres i.e. not lots of cornering, which makes the wear even more surprising.

I last checked tyre pressures beginning of April. ATS guy may well have been a newby! New tyres due to be fitted on Tuesday so I shall find out then whether VW Finance have approved alignment check / adjustment. One would hope they have approved an alignment check otherwise I could need more tyres before the end of the lease! The other front tyre also shows excessive wear to the inner edge but nothing like the other one,

I wonder if anyone can help identify a possible cause for tyre tread wear the likes of which I have never seen before? My car is a leased 2017 Fabia Monte Carlo estate with 17” wheels - done 48000 miles. The tyre pressure monitoring system picked up a reduction in pressure in the front right tyre so I checked it around the tyre - treads looked ok with no foreign objects so I equalised all pressures then re-set the monitor.Less than a week later I had the same thing happen - something obviously wasn’t right so I thought I’d better do a more thorough check. Crawling round under the front of the car I noticed the inner edge of the tyre on the affected wheel was badly worn so I took it off to put on the spare. Once off the car I could see that the inner edge of the tyre was very badly worn which had caused a hole which was slowly leaking. I have never seen wear like this before and neither has the guy at ATS. The tyre is worn on the very edge of the shoulder but is not even around the tyre. Wear is much more pronounced around about half of the circumference. It does not look inflation related as the outer shoulder is not badly worn. It could be pot hole related i.e. hitting a pot hole has knocked the wheel out of alignment (camber?) but as I said the wear is not even around the circumference. Is this a tyre manufacturing fault I wonder. It is a budget tyre (Zeta Alventi) which I had put on when VW Finance refused to renew a punctured tyre that was not repairable, despite having tyre cover. The tyre has done approx 35000 miles and performed fine when on the car such that I would have happily bought Zeta brand again. What I am trying to ascertain is whether this is a tyre fault or a car fault. If it’s due to a poorly manufactured tyre that will steer me away from budget tyres in future (excuse the pun). If it’s car or steering geometry related I could do with knowing what so I can get ATS or the dealer to make the relevant adjustments. The car is due to go back in less than six months and I don’t want the next owner to experience the same problem, which could in all seriousness cause a bad accident if the tyre were to blow at high speed. I am aware that some Skodas have suffered excessive inner tyre wear - is this an issue in the Fabia III? Thanks