In basic terms:

Tracking - the toe in/out on the wheel. Think steering car left/right angle.

Alignment - where the wheels sit in relation to each other, in straight line front to rear on each axle.

Geometry - everything else, Camber angle that wheel is addressing the road vertically and Caster the pivot point that a wheel turns around, principally for steering.

Hope helps a bit, Kevin.

In basic terms:

Tracking - the toe in/out on the wheel. Think steering car left/right angle.

Alignment - where the wheels sit in relation to each other, in straight line front to rear on each axle.

Geometry - everything else, Camber angle that wheel is addressing the road vertically and Caster the pivot point that a wheel turns around, principally for steering.

Hope helps a bit, Kevin.

Nice clear understandable statement which even I can get my head around.

Thanks for taking the trouble..

Well its seems as though its time to open up that can of Whup Ass!!

SUK Cus Serv are now definately saying that my problem is a tyre issue, but have no answer to the fact that at least 3 tyre manufacturers exhibit the problem. Neither can they recommend a a tyre to fit! Nor are they willing to comment on the fact that would I be entitled to reject my wifes Scout that is due anytime soon if it comes with Dunlops!!

All sorts of excuses just to get rid of me. It appears to me that they think if the "buggeration" factor is high enough we will go away. Not so!

Anyone fancy an away day to SUK HQ at Milton Keynes with their Vrs? Autoexpress, local press etc to be invited. Or should we wait til the Motorshow and hang around the stand?

Before this I think I will have a day stood outside my dealers - preferably a saturday - with a few flyers to give out! Saturday out to D M Keith Leeds anyone?

Well its seems as though its time to open up that can of Whup Ass!!

SUK Cus Serv are now definately saying that my problem is a tyre issue, but have no answer to the fact that at least 3 tyre manufacturers exhibit the problem. Neither can they recommend a a tyre to fit! Nor are they willing to comment on the fact that would I be entitled to reject my wifes Scout that is due anytime soon if it comes with Dunlops!!

All sorts of excuses just to get rid of me. It appears to me that they think if the "buggeration" factor is high enough we will go away. Not so!

Anyone fancy an away day to SUK HQ at Milton Keynes with their Vrs? Autoexpress, local press etc to be invited. Or should we wait til the Motorshow and hang around the stand?

Before this I think I will have a day stood outside my dealers - preferably a saturday - with a few flyers to give out! Saturday out to D M Keith Leeds anyone?

Watchdog just started again maybe a quick email to them. Just hope its all sorted out before mine arrives in June.

i mailed watchdog in the hope they'd pic up on it. Perhaps a mass of mails to them would suddenly make their eyes light up at a good story.

Here's their Link to giving them a story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/gotastory/

i mailed watchdog in the hope they'd pic up on it. Perhaps a mass of mails to them would suddenly make their eyes light up at a good story.

Here's their Link to giving them a story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/gotastory/

My vRS is booked in to Skoda dealer to be checked on 26 April. I'll see how I get on with that but if I'm not satisfied with the outcome then I may well put an email to Watchdog.

Sarge.

As a new Octavia Vrs owner I thought I would throw my two peneth in on this one.

Excessive wear on the inside of your rear tyres is caused by excessive camber on the rear wheels. This problem can be exaserbated by things like lowering your car or changing wheels to a type with a different offset from std as these things both alter the way the wheel sits in realation to the road.

You used to see loads of E30 BM's slammed on the deck with stupid amounts of camber on the rears. I suffred from it with my Cav GSI 2000 as I put 17's on it which didnt have a perfect offset and they wore slighlty heavier on the inside edge.

The problem you have is on a lot of cars the camber on the rear is not adjustable (not sure on the Octy). The way people used to get round it was to fit canber bolts into the rear suspension arms. These bolts were eliptic and when turned would moce the suspension arm and give camber adjustment.

Changing a worn set of rears onto the front is asking for trouble as they are already badly worn and this will effect the way they sit, grip and sound.

Good practice on my old Scoob was to change all 4 tyres together because of the 4wd, this meant alot of people rotated their tyres regularly to ensure they wore evenly. The only problm I found was that once a tyre has been on one corner for a while they tend to bed in and wear a certain way and if you then swap them around it can throw out your handling quite badly.

Plus getting your geometry done once the tyres are badly worn isnt great either, best to have a full set up each time you get new tyres.

As a new Octavia Vrs owner I thought I would throw my two peneth in on this one.

Excessive wear on the inside of your rear tyres is caused by excessive camber on the rear wheels. This problem can be exaserbated by things like lowering your car or changing wheels to a type with a different offset from std as these things both alter the way the wheel sits in realation to the road.

You used to see loads of E30 BM's slammed on the deck with stupid amounts of camber on the rears. I suffred from it with my Cav GSI 2000 as I put 17's on it which didnt have a perfect offset and they wore slighlty heavier on the inside edge.

The problem you have is on a lot of cars the camber on the rear is not adjustable (not sure on the Octy). The way people used to get round it was to fit canber bolts into the rear suspension arms. These bolts were eliptic and when turned would moce the suspension arm and give camber adjustment.

Changing a worn set of rears onto the front is asking for trouble as they are already badly worn and this will effect the way they sit, grip and sound.

Good practice on my old Scoob was to change all 4 tyres together because of the 4wd, this meant alot of people rotated their tyres regularly to ensure they wore evenly. The only problm I found was that once a tyre has been on one corner for a while they tend to bed in and wear a certain way and if you then swap them around it can throw out your handling quite badly.

Plus getting your geometry done once the tyres are badly worn isnt great either, best to have a full set up each time you get new tyres.

Some of this I agree with to start. However, the Octavia issue is probably more to do with toe settings on the rear wheels, rather than camber. Camber would be responsible for wear on all of the inside edge but most are claiming a sawtooth pattern which to me indicates toe. Camber is adjustable on the Octavia and a change to the revised setting might see a difference at the detriment to handling.

It doesn't make a great deal of difference when the geometry is checked. Irrespective of tyre wear the geo is still the same. The wear on the tyres is symptom of geometry settings, that's all IMO.

Dunlop Sport Max GT fitted OE. At 18k rears worn and sawtoothed on inside edge. Fronts wore down evenly.

Have put the rears on the front and have Goodyears now on the rear. A lot of noise now from the front, sounds like a wheel bearing!

Will be changing fronts as soon as poss.

I think its not good enough that Skoda are letting this happen! My dealer has said it's a 'characteristic' of the vRS to wear down tyres on the iside edge due to suspension settings! this never happenned on my Mk1 vRS or any other 'sports' car I've ever had!

I'm not mechanically minded and whilst I find the technical explanations of interest some very basic facts seem very very wrong. For the last twenty odd years I've been fortunate enough to be able to change to a new car every two to three years. Invariably these have been from the AVG and have been performance models, 5 Golf GTI's, Renault 19 16V 3 Audi S-lines and this VRS. In a work capacity I've also driven many such vehicles and never once have I encountered this type of problem.

If it was a one off and I drove like an idiot I'd be inclined to accept the bull that is being pedalled out. The fact that over 25 of us with new VRs cars are telling the same story makes me think there is something fundamentally wrong with these cars. That to me is a manufactures problem.

I am still awaiting a formal response from SUK as I had my vehicle looked at and the alignment done twice under warranty.

If I do not receive an acceptable outcome I will write a letter and copy every motoring magazine and newspaper into it. I will happily join others in any form of complaint and I will also consider legal action against SUK. What really p****s me off is that I love the car in every other way but this is driving me mad.

My VRS FL petrol started to suffer from this issue after approximately 17,000 miles. The noise is unbarable, I have had the geometry setup twice and have ordered a new set of PS3's.

Much has been made of the rear camber settings however when I challenged my local dealer he read a technical bulletin saying that there is no update in general to the rear camber values except where cars exhibit "sawtoothing" where it is suggested the rear camber can be changed. Skoda are obviously very aware of this issue.

I own a 2010 Octavia vRS Diesel and am experiencing extremely bad inner wear on both rear tyres. When I recently had the vehicle in at Skoda for it's first service I advised of this, new rear suspension arms were fitted under warranty and as their tyre prices were very high they advised once I have the tyres replaced I have to return to have the geometary sorted, however they advised that Skoda apparently do not cover any tyre contribution for vehicles over 10,000 miles. When speaking to Skoda UK they advised that there is no contribution at all. They maintain that it is a tyre manufacturing defect and Skoda seem to be 'passing the buck' to Dunlop. They also advised basically that the Dunlop tyres are rubbish and I should 'seek advice' on what type of tyres to change them to. They advised there is nothing else they can do. Through my work I have tried to claim Continental for a number of tyres, they are not interested in any aspect of contribution so I imagine Dunlop will be similar.

Naturally I will be taking this further to see what happens, as far as I am concerned Skoda manufacture these vehicles with this brand of tyre on it, so I fail to understand how they can wash their hands of it so blatently. Maybe the watchdog thing is an idea! I certainly ain't splashing out money on tyres regularly.

There have been loads of threads about this issue and it does seem that Skoda the dealer and Skoda always start by denying that there is an issue. Persistence does however pay and there is overwhelming evidence on this forum that this is a common problem.

Noise increased dramatically on my car after the 7k mark. A technician at the dealer pointed out sawtoothing on the rear wheels at 9k and the wheels were changed front to back and geometry was revised (at their cost) when I had the first service at 10k.

All this did was make the droning worse. At this point the dealer told me all four wheels were out of shape and needed replacing. After several threats of legal action and some foot stomping with the service manager Skoda eventually agreed to replace two tyres. So I had two Conti SC3 fitted foc.

This made a huge difference as the droning was previously unbearable. I've now put on another 3k and noticed that tyre noise is again becoming intrusive. When I replace the two remaining Dunlops I will have a full geometry check done.

I'm still not 100% happy with my VRS - performance, handling and noise. I think the issue is simply that it was not set up properly in the first place. I am currently looking for somewhere other than the dealer that can do this for me.

Octavia VRS 2.0 PD estate 2008.Car has done 20,000 miles from new, also now have the horrible noise from the rear so after reading the threads on here went out to have a look. No surprise that the inner edges on both tyres were very worn compared to the rest of the tyre. So it looks like two new tyres (not Dunlops) and a full geometry. So I've gone from an Alfa Romeo which used to eat it's front tyre's to a Skoda that eats it rear tyre's.

Having written to Skoda finance over 8 weeks ago I finaly got a response. They told me that the alignment had been done twice at no cost and I should be thankfull. No mention was actually made of the point of my complaint that I wanted the tyres replacing! Fuming doesn't even come close.

Rang them and spoke to the guy who was an arrogant arsehole. He further stated that he had spoken to SUK and they were not aware of any problem. When I demanded details of his contact with SUK, in writing, I got an e-mail back the next day apologising for the error and stating that SUK were aware of this problem and had issued a bulletin to dealers telling them to alter the alignment to the extremes of their tolerances.

I was given the number of a complaints escalation manager who I also contacted. He was very apologetic but most interestingly admitted that sawtoothing was caused by an isue with the cars set up. He didn't even ask which tyres I had fitted.

He has agreed to consider my complaint and get back to me next week.

Will update later.

Rang them and spoke to the guy who was an arrogant arsehole. He further stated that he had spoken to SUK and they were not aware of any problem. When I demanded details of his contact with SUK, in writing, I got an e-mail back the next day apologising for the error and stating that SUK were aware of this problem and had issued a bulletin to dealers telling them to alter the alignment to the extremes of their tolerances.

Will update later.

Most interesting.

Do you by any chance have any details or a reference to the document that SUK sent to the dealers on this subject.

This would be most helpful to any other member would might wish to take up the same problem with the dealer.

I quite expect many dealers would deny all knowledge, but when confronted with a referenced document that could be a different matter

Rang them and spoke to the guy who was an arrogant arsehole. He further stated that he had spoken to SUK and they were not aware of any problem. When I demanded details of his contact with SUK, in writing, I got an e-mail back the next day apologising for the error and stating that SUK were aware of this problem and had issued a bulletin to dealers telling them to alter the alignment to the extremes of their tolerances.

Perhaps this explains why SUK are sending me (on Tuesday) to my local dealer for an alignment check/ adjustment rather than full geometry, which I had previously done but which they wont validate because it was done at an Audi dealer. Will report back after Tuesday.

Sarge.

Most interesting.

Do you by any chance have any details or a reference to the document that SUK sent to the dealers on this subject.

This would be most helpful to any other member would might wish to take up the same problem with the dealer.

I quite expect many dealers would deny all knowledge, but when confronted with a referenced document that could be a different matter

I will try to get a reference number or other identifying no for the document

just so you know, I pushed, and pushed, and pushed and finally managed to get Skoda to pay for 70% of the cost of the new tyres.

They told me it was an issue with the tyres, but remember, people have been complaining about this for monhts, and therefore as I picked up my car in september, having already heard about these issues, I told Skoda that they had supplied the vehicale knowing there were issues.

I think I was lucky as I took the car to the dealer very early (just over 10k) and as it took them so long to look into it (3 months, 7000 miles) I kept going on about how much I was inconvinienced.

DONT GIVE UP. keep going on at them, and hopefully they will fold.

Also, DONT ACCEPT THE DEALER PRICE. I use one of hte mobile fitting services, and got the dealer to match that price. Saved £60 per tyre compared to what they quoted, and only paid 30% of that.

GOOD LUCK TO ONE AND ALL.

Octavia Tdi VRS Ltd Ed, 09 plate, bought new from Farmers Leicester, now with 21k miles.

Regarding the sawtoothing of my rear tyres, the issue has worsened over the last couple of months, to the point I have now diagnosed what the deafening drone is (internal sawtoothing of the rears)

I have emailed SkodaUK and the response is below. I am amazed at the response - rotate tyres !!

Have never had this issue before, been driving Skodas since 2002 and they hope it doesn't deter me from enjoying driving it. The drone is getting unbearable.

Has anyone discussed the potential legal situation with Skoda? The Skoda contact is on the end of the response....feel free to direct all same issues to him...

Peter.

Skoda response email............

Reference: SD-2011/04-008213

Dear Mr Lomax

Thank you for your email dated 28 April 2011 regarding the issue you have with the tyres on your Octavia.

I can confirm that the Skoda Warranty Department classify tyres as fair wear and tear and they would not accept any claim being

submitted from the Skoda retailer for the cost of replacement tyres.

With regards to the uneven wear that you are experiencing on the rear tyres, then I can only confirm that the Tyre Manufacturers

have recommended to their customers that the rear tyres should be rotated with the front tyres on a regular basis, as this will

even out the wear.

May I apologise on behalf of Skoda UK for the issues you are currently experiencing with your vehicle. I trust that this

incident will not deter you from continuing to enjoy driving your Skoda.

Thank you for contacting Skoda Customer Services.

Kind regards

John Good, Customer Relations Manager | Customer Service

Å kodaAuto UK | Selectapost 34 | Sheffield | S97 3FA

Tel: +44 (0)845 7745745 | fax: +44 (0)844 8267855

[email protected] | www.skoda.co.uk | www.skoda-auto.com

Å koda. Simply Clever

What a load of complete and utter BO****KS!!

I have just returned from D M Keith Leeds having had the car "Alignment Checked", which showed that 3 out of the 4 wheels were completely out of tolerance. To quote the service manager "I've never seen one so bad"!

Spoke to a friend of my brothers at the weekend who has had the same problem with his VRS and had exactly the same results having had an alignment.

I am convinced that these cars are leaving the factory incorrectly set up!

Tomorrow I will be discussing with John Good the contribution payment that Skoda WILL be paying me for the cost of the original 2 tyres and the 2 tyres that were put on as a result of him saying that it was a tyre problem.

Rest assured that I will be pursuing this to the fullest extent even if it means going to court! Will update once I've spoken to him.

Perhaps this explains why SUK are sending me (on Tuesday) to my local dealer for an alignment check/ adjustment rather than full geometry, which I had previously done but which they wont validate because it was done at an Audi dealer. Will report back after Tuesday.

Sarge.

Alignment check was done and front wheels were found to be out in terms of their toe. This would explain the very bad wear on the fronts. Dealer has re-aligned and as a happy consequence the steering wheel is now properly aligned instead of being off at an angle, as it had been since new. The dealer was going to be making contact with SUK about their findings and I'll then be pursuing with SUK myself. So car is apparently set up correctly now (though there is still some saw-toothing on the rears) but story is not finished!

Sarge.

just to add to this thread, i collected my new vrs over a week ago with conti sports 2 on them.

so maybe they are not putting them out with dunlops now?

just though i would make you aware.

cheers

I am now on my second vrs a 2010 with sportmax GT tryes and I have had bad saw toothing on both of them, my 2006 vrs developed it by 10,000 and now on my new one also at around 10,000 miles. It seems to me that most of the cases on this thread all appear at around this mileage which leads me to think that this is down to poor factory setup of the rear camber and Skoda know this all to well and this is why this problem is not covered under warranty after 6000 miles.

I doubt anyone on this forum has noticed this problem occurring before 6000 miles so Skoda know they will not have to deal all our faulty cars under their warranty. I am so sick of explaining the horrible noise to everyone that travels in my car, I just tell them if they ever buy one they can expect to spend a fortune every year replacing tyres. I did manage to get £200 out of SUK on my first vrs after months of a huge bun fight but I just can't be bothered anymore and will not be buying another Skoda in the future, which is a same as it is a good car apart from this glaring and expensive design fault.

Edited 5 May, 201115 yr by Vrs2

i was advised on my first service (18500ish miles) that my inner edge was 0.1mm on both rear tyres. haveing checked the tyres i have evidence of saw toothing and uneven tyre where (inner edge 0.1mm rest of tyre varies from 0.3mm to 0.5mm). had my tyres changed today and dropped the tyres into my dealer, fully agreed the issue and even said he had seen it on SEAT's.

he looked on the bulletin pages with me peering over his shoulder and low and behold released in december 2010 is a bulletin that shows the rear settings and issues are saw toothing and rear noise (includes the warranty claim references too).

will be claiming for 4 wheel alignment (even service engineerwrote this on service notes)from skoda.

agree that tyre claims are rarely agreed.

in addition my tyre where is very lumpy bumpy if you run your hand around the tyre.