Nearly getting to the end of the Saga.

Finally SUK have offered me 50% 'goodwill gesture' which I have told them where to stick. The reason being is the content of two emails I have recieved. The content of the second is shown below.

Unfortunately we are unable to contribute towards the cost of either Dunlop or Bridgestone tyres in this instance.

The reason for this is that these tyres have been identified as possibly exhibiting the following characteristics :

Uneven Tyre wear due to the tread design of the tyre

Increased Tyre noise also due to the reasons of tread design

I hope you appreciate and understand the reasons for this decision.

I have gone back to them, and siad we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way is to agree NOw to pay the full amount, the hard way is to say no, and I will find ways to put this in the public domain!

Will keep you posted.

Just as an aside I was in my local dealer a couple of days ago and they had a VRS that had just come off the lorry and it had conto SP3's on it, so maybe they have gone away from the problem tyres.

My brand new Vrs has conti sp3 fitted from factory.

I am having severe problems with road/tyre noise with the conti sport 2s, dealer is being understanding with this and encouraged me to test drive a new vRS to compare with mine which I will do, if not ok they will look at the geometry, got a noisekiller kit on it's way at £170. It will be quite annoying if conti sport 3s solve the noise problem.

My previous CS3's did this. Some tyres are worse than others I guess, but I don't think the problem is corrected with a different brand/model of tyre. Its an alignment issue.

I am having severe problems with road/tyre noise with the conti sport 2s, dealer is being understanding with this and encouraged me to test drive a new vRS to compare with mine which I will do, if not ok they will look at the geometry, got a noisekiller kit on it's way at £170. It will be quite annoying if conti sport 3s solve the noise problem.

Just as an aside I was in my local dealer a couple of days ago and they had a VRS that had just come off the lorry and it had conto SP3's on it, so maybe they have gone away from the problem tyres.

I picked up a new Octy from the dealer last week and it's fitted with those damn Bridgestone Potenzas. Will keep you posted if they start to play up!!!

Mac

Interesting - thanks for the info; i'll keep an eye on this as i shop around for a new car.

Mine is running on Bridgestone Potenza's and the noise is so loud i have to turn the radio volume to minimum 15 in order to cover it.

Mine is running on Bridgestone Potenza's and the noise is so loud i have to turn the radio volume to minimum 15 in order to cover it.

Christ that is loud.

My brand new Vrs has conti sp3 fitted from factory.

And mine which was picked up just before xmas....

I had a wander into a dealer today and the Fabia Vrs that I was looking at had Dunlop Sport Maxx GT. One outside had Continental on. They were both new cars. Guess it's luck of the draw.

Its not just the tyres its the geometry, Skoda's alignment data is wrong, like many manufacturers they have the incorrect data and will keep setting the car up to that data.

If you take it to a proper specialist and have it set up it will be fine

Seeings as the OP is in Herts why not take the car to wheels in motion/blackboots there are few people better in this country

Edited 20 March, 201115 yr by Richf

For anyone in Scotland i highly recommend John at Pro-Grip in bonnybridge

Can someone post what the settings the independant specialists are using, and how they have arrived at these settings.

Can someone post what the settings the independant specialists are using, and how they have arrived at these settings.

Yeah right , let trade secrets away , not going to happen mate sorry

Not what I meant really! Just wanted to establish how people have arrived at settings different to the manufacturer who will have spent alot of R&D time and money coming up with the settings. What do I base my decision on, to take the car to an independant specialist with the associated costs in time and money only for the car to be no better and then have to take it to Skoda to be redone.

Having taken legal advice through "Which" magazine's lawyers I made an official complaint to Skoda through Skoda finance threatening to reject my vehicle if this issue is not addressed and the tyres replaced free of charge. I am awaiting thier response. Will update when received.

Can someone post what the settings the independant specialists are using, and how they have arrived at these settings.

Here are the revised rear camber settings, I have changed my car to these settings and had no problems with rear tyres since:

http://octavia-vrs.com/cms/content/common-problems

Not what I meant really! Just wanted to establish how people have arrived at settings different to the manufacturer who will have spent alot of R&D time and money coming up with the settings. What do I base my decision on, to take the car to an independant specialist with the associated costs in time and money only for the car to be no better and then have to take it to Skoda to be redone.

I was a wheel alignment specialist for many years. I was the "go-to" guy in my area if you had a problem car. This was the mid-80s & a lot of the cars weren't set up to handle RHD or steeply cambered roads. Or they were set-up to be great when all the suspension was new but slightly sagged springs, tired dampers & a bit of wear in a dozen rubber-bushed pivot points would make it all go wrong.

I'd work out my revised settings by looking at the old tyres (hated it when a customer brought in a car with new tyres); looking at the factory settings & the current settings on the car & then make an educated guess if it was a vehicle type I hadn't seen before. Often I'd ask the customer to come back after thousand km (or 2) and have a look & tweek the settings (FOC of course).

I used to have totally different settings to factory on W124 Mercs; added a lot more preload to the front torsion bars on Toyota taragos & commercials (stopped the front end from bottoming out); pulled 50% of the -ve camber out of the local Commodore (Opel Rekord???) and a stack of other stuff that other specialists said wouldn't work.

It just so happened that one of my clients liked my work so much (he'd been to half a dozen places trying to cure the tyre wear on his 3x Izuzus) that he offered me a job fixing aircraft for more money. So I buggered off. :-)

Strangely, my Octy with 65,000km wears perfectly & has never had an alignment.

Mercs still have a problem nowadays with factory settings. The other thing is that Main dealers dont have the equipment that specialists use if you cant measure things accurately then you cant possibly set them correctly

Just changed the rear axle on my octy and want to get it setup perfectly. Anyone know and can recommend someone in the South Wales (im swansea but will travel) who knows what they are doing? Cheers

PS my missus Leon FR was saw toothing bridgestones and changed to Falken and had no further issues.

Edited 21 March, 201115 yr by dainott

Just changed the rear axle on my octy and want to get it setup perfectly. Anyone know and can recommend someone in the South Wales (im swansea but will travel) who knows what they are doing? Cheers

PS my missus Leon FR was saw toothing bridgestones and changed to Falken and had no further issues.

I had some new falkens on the rear of my vrs (original Dunlops had sawtoothed) a d within about 3k they had started to show signs of excessive wear on the I side edges. I've now had the suspension adjusted and it seems to have stopped them getting any worse. The car feels better too

Skoda told mr to get the alignment done at my expense and report back if adjustment was needed. It was, and I've sent them the pre/post adjustment readings and Skoda customer services have said that the original settings were 'within tolerances' . Surprised??

I'm waiting for them to comeback to me. I'm a little fed up of it- added to the squeaks and rattles (like being in a 10yr old astra!) and other niggles I'm pretty ****ed off.

So should I be worried that my new VRS (picked up Thursday) still has Dunlops even though Skoda say they won't use them now?