My wife's Fabia is knocking on a bit now, it's a 2003 TDI Estate with 173k on the clock.

 

For the last MOT I had to get 2 new front tyres on it, the outsides were fairly unworn, less than half, however the insides were down to the cords.

 

I checked the tracking myself and the garage also checked it, they also inspected the rod ends, ball joints and everything else that can affect tracking but couldn't find anything wrong.

 

She's had 3 previous fabia's, although they were petrol 8v 1.4's and 2 of those developed knackered wheel bearings.

 

So I was wondering, do the TDI's use the same bearings, and if so, could one of these failing cause a change in 'Toe' and Camber enough to wreck her tyres?

 

I don't drive it often myself, she drives it every day and is a little mechanically unsympathetic so doesn't notice or care about how well it goes, as long as it goes. When I drove it last night there seemed to be a little bit of a rumble, nothing like we've had on previous cars though.

 

Dave.

They all use the same bearing, very very uncommon to find play in one tho, noisey yes but hardly ever play, I would suspect rear wishbone bushes

Thanks for the info. I thought the TDI's might be a slightly bigger bearing but I guess not.

 

On one of the cars she had the bearing went so badly that there was about 3mm of play at the rim when that wheel was off the ground. It didn't stay that way long enough to tell whether it was affecting the tracking as I put a new one in that weekend.

 

Dave.