I know its a long shot on here but here we go! I've owned a 2006 uk Mazda 3 sport 2.0L since 2011 and the tyre wear is driving me mad.

Essentially the front passenger side tyre wears unevenly on the outside even with normal driving, the drivers side does also but to a much lesser extent. In june 2012 the car failed MOT and had both front wishbones replaced, tyres at this point were an MOT advisory.

The front tyres were then replaced in September 2012 with hankook ventus prime 2 k115s 205/50 R17 93W XL. The car went through MOT again at the start of June 2013, the passenger side wishbone and CV joint were replaced this time, again tyres were advisory after only 9 months and under 10k!

The only problems I've been able to find similar to this all refer to the mazda 3 wearing tyres on the inside of the wheel due to designed negative camber, not the outside which is why I'm totally stumped. I'm going to have to spend some more £ on new front tyres again after only 9 months and its killing me, I wouldn't mind if the car was driven hard but it's really not.

Any ideas what it could be? Could the car have been misaligned to compensate for the cars known negative camber?

I've heard that going for lower rated speed tyres (e.g. V instead of W) may help as the compound on Vs is harder than W? At this stage I don't want to risk going for budget tyres but I don't want to spend nearly £290 on two tyres that'll get me 9 months and 9k down the road if I'm lucky :( I've used vredstien sportrac 3s on my octavia vrs for the last 6 years and have only been through 1 1/2 full set of tyres in 40-50k worth of driving and the octavia does get driven harder than the Mazda, at least it feels that way!

Any ideas? Anyone ever owned a 3 and seen similar issues?

Not heard that before, sorry.

Have you ever had the car 4 wheel aligned?  I replaced a bottom ball joint on the Lupo yesterday and the feel of the steering when strange, took it to the Kwik Fit centre who have a new laser aligner and the camber and toe were out because of changing the ball joint, a few minutes of tweeking and £45 later the car drives great again.

 

 I would have the alignment checked as a starter.

Think that's the plan, the rears will need replacing soon, so I was going to put the new ones on the rear, move the rear up the front and then get it aligned with them. See if the wear occurs in the same place, then replace with new ones up front.

Thing that's bugging me is that before the very first wishbone work back in 2012 the tyre was wearing more like that on that side already.

Are you fitting cheap wishbones?

I would expect them to last more than 12 months.

It may be worth fitting polybushes if they wear out that fast.

is the tracking and alignment being done after the work carried out?

 

I had a 2005 mazda 3 sport 2.0L but the sedan version and the rear tyres always went on inner edge. I lowered the tyre profile from 50 to 45 I think and i think had federals fitted.