Having just changed a rear pair of tyres on my Vrs Estate it appears that my rear shock absorbers also need replacing (52k miles) - the tyre wear was very irregular, with just the inside shoulder being very heavily worn but in an irregular vertical "wave" pattern (apparently called featherd sawtooth wear) - probably explains the odd road noise!

I was going to replace the shock absorbers myself (eurocarparts.com are selling Bilsteins at about £36 each) but wondered how difficult a job it is. I'm reasonably handy and have a decent set of tools (having spent a lot of my younger years stripping and rebuilding Mini's) but time, inclination and small children have reduced my window of concentration to a lot smaller than it used to be.

Any thoughts? I can't find a Haynes Manual for the Octy II so any recommendations?

Edited 3 November, 200916 yr by amclerr

This has been done to death, and its actually an incorrect camber setting from the factory.

A four wheel geometry setup with the revised camber angles would correct the problem with new rear tyres.

A worn shock absorber usually allows the car to bounce rather than altering the camber significantly.

Just to add to my previous post, this is a common faults page generated on the Mk2 Octavia Platform.

The original and revised camber settings are listed right at the very top of the page.

http://octavia-vrs.com/technical/common_problems.htm

They are dead easy to change. But are they soft or leaking?

If you go ahead and change the shocks, then it would be 3-4 bolts behind the liner with a large on in the bottom of the rear hub.

Thanks guys. The dealer has already applied the revised camber setting - I took the car in about 9 months ago before the warranty ran out as I had a *lot* of noise from the rear that I thought was a bearing letting loose. The dealer applied the revised settings and gave the rear bearings a clean bill of health so I figured a) if something went wrong I had recourse to the dealer and I saw on this forum that tyre noise was common on part worn tyres so it would be sorted when it came time to change the rear tyres.

The rears had just hit 2mm on what I could see, so I decided with winter just around the corner it was time to change. What I then saw (to a greater extent on the rear passenger over the rear driver's side) was a surprise with the inside shoulder (to about 1 inch inboard) being not only scrubbed clean but it has the noticable sawtooth pattern.

If the wear was smooth all the way around I'd agree with the initial posts about camber, but it has a distinct sawtooth (which I would guess is what was generating the lot of noise). You can feel it when you run your hand round the worn edge - it has a very clear up/down wave pattern. My local tyre fitter (which is how it was spotted) has suggested that the shocks are soft and are not damping the wheel movement properly so rebound instead of being a smooth decelerative damping action it is an oscillation which results in uneven wear. I don't think he has an axe to grind (unlike a certain other large chain that shall remain un-named) as he only does tyres and nothing else.

This makes some sense to me as over the last few months I have felt that the handling was getting "soggy" - the car seemed to roll more entering a corner and then didn't feel as stable as it used to. I'm also pretty sure its understeering more. The question is, is this also a symptom of a shock absorber not damping the spring rebound as it should.

I'm going to take car & removed tyre to the dealer on Friday for a chat and a quote (if needed), so wanted to have some idea of difficulty & cost to do it for myself.

This makes some sense to me as over the last few months I have felt that the handling was getting "soggy" - the car seemed to roll more entering a corner and then didn't feel as stable as it used to. I'm also pretty sure its understeering more. The question is, is this also a symptom of a shock absorber not damping the spring rebound as it should.

If you push down on the rear of the car and let go how many oscillations do you get?