Tyre wear on my VRS

[LewJo]

Ok so I don't exactly drive like a saint but 3000 miles in and my front tyres are about 1mm away from the depth marker.

I know the Continental Contact 2's are known for poor wear but surely it's not unreasonable for me to say this wear is excessive?

Lewjo (Joseph)

[Pullers01]

Hi Joseph,

Hope your well.

Blimey, I'd say so mate. Mine is just coming up 3000 miles (Tdi not Tsi) and fronts are still like new.

I drive a mixture of roads although mainly motorway on my commute.

Have they worn more on one side or anything unusual?

Cheers

Chris

[stig1]

that seems very exsesive

[mkaye1310]

Hi Joseph, Cannot make a judgement yet on my MK 3, but the conti's on my MK 2 did 14880 miles and were good for a little bit more. Im not a slouch in my car and thought the mileage was ok. Will keep a careful watch on the fronts, only done 400 miles so far.

[Neily03]

That's bad, mines done 6k and the fronts are about half worn

[Guest Cossiecol]

What's the wear pattern?

[bichti]

To be fair, you can ruin a set of tyres in less than 50 miles if you want to. Less than that in fact.

 

Lewjo, are they worn evenly across the running surface?

[Mike999vRS]

You haven't been to "the ring" and back have you?!

My conti are sitting on a shelf just now but they did about 2k before the winters went on and they're almost like new. Well, except the shoulders - there are a few, er, roundabouts round here. Honest.

[Guest Cossiecol]

You haven't been to "the ring" and back have you?!My conti are sitting on a shelf just now but they did about 2k before the winters went on and they're almost like new. Well, except the shoulders - there are a few, er, roundabouts round here. Honest.

Lol

Fife (Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy) are all roundabouts anyway.

[AnthonyDi]

Sounds extreme, either your driving like a speed demon or perhaps your wheels need an alignment?

[vrskeith]

Tyre wear probably proportionate too fuel consumption?

 

Or is it traffic light syndrome, linked to right foot irritation. :think:

 

Hope your wallet can stand the pace!

[skovirg]

If tyre wear is even, I'd say it was excessive. Unless of course you're contributing to higher insurance premiums for all and mistaking an Octavia for a sports car?

[Lee Thomas]

Picked my VRS up on September 1st, ticked over 10000 miles last week and tyres have maybe worn 1/3 of the way to the depth markers. Yours sounds very excessive.

[Stuarted]

To the OP:

many posters have been kind enough to take the trouble to respond to your query, and have (very sensibly) asked if the tyre wear is uneven.

Well?

[Dodgy]

To the OP:

many posters have been kind enough to take the trouble to respond to your query, and have (very sensibly) asked if the tyre wear is uneven.

Well?

 

To be fair, it's only been about 13 hours since he posted and in between those times is what most of us to consider to be sleeping time.

 

Having said that, I've noticed on another forum I use people coming in with 1 post, gets a load of help and never to be seen again. I don't think that's the case with the OP

[Guest]

Joseph sometimes works on a Sunday iirc. He is a genuine guy and I'm sure he will respond with more info when he has time.

[jtypecav]

Even driving spiritedly, on normal roads you would never expect this level of wear. Clearly alignment / geometry  / wheel issue.

The ascona (mk2 cav) in my avatar pic has been a daily car for 7 years, it's 1ton, FWD with 270 bhp and eats contis to 1mm in circa 10K miles and flirts with the notion of traction on potholed, rough grade tarmac regularly. 

[Stuarted]

Joseph sometimes works on a Sunday iirc. He is a genuine guy and I'm sure he will respond with more info when he has time.

.

Fair enough - apologies if I was discourteous.

He certainly got a lot of prompt responses to his enquiry (this is a good forum!), all saying what I thought - unnatural rate of wear, quite possibly due to wheel misalignment.  Even a small toe-in (or toe-out) error can cause devstating tyre wear.  All aspects of wheel alignment - a big and complicated issue - can cause various subtle (and surprising) problems, but toe-in/out is the one which can have an immeduate and horrendous effect on tyre wear, and is the basic check which almost any tyre fitter should be able to carry out even if they are not equipped or competent to check any other aspect of the wheel alignment.

As for "driving it like a sports car" - that shouldn't produce those rates of tyre wear.  I have a sports car and I drive it like a sports car, and the tyre wear is no greater than any other car I drive.

[Timoctav]

.

As for "driving it like a sports car" - that shouldn't produce those rates of tyre wear.  I have a sports car and I drive it like a sports car, and the tyre wear is no greater than any other car I drive.

But is your sports car front wheel drive (I'd hope not) - one of the several disadvantages of having a front wheel drive car with any reasonable amount of power is excess tyre wear if driven enthusiastically, the front tyres are over worked trying to propel and steer the car at the same time.

[Orville]

But is your sports car front wheel drive (I'd hope not) - one of the several disadvantages of having a front wheel drive car with any reasonable amount of power is excess tyre wear if driven enthusiastically, the front tyres are over worked trying to propel and steer the car at the same time.

i always found that my 4wd cars ate through tyres much quicker than anything else. My 3-seies gave pretty even wear but overall the tyres did not last any longer than for FWD cars (assuming front and rears are rotated after 5-6k miles). FWD does wear the fronts faster, but rears last much longer than for 4wd and RWD. Rotating them results in FWD lasting at least as long as RWD in my experience. Edited 26 January, 2014 by Orville

[Timoctav]

That might be the case but unless you specify the spare wheel option you have no jack or wheelbrace to rotate the tyres. How many drivers actually do that anyway?

[Orville]

It still averages the same wear if you do not rotate tyres. All that happens is you have to order two new tyres twice as often, rather than 4 in one go. I rotate my own tyres using a £30 wheel-jach which I purchased from Halfirds. It is much safer and easier than using emergency/space saver jacks, and everyone should order the spare wheel option. I also rotate tyres on my RWD and 4WD cars, sometimes back to fronts and sometimes opposing corners if tread was not directional. Sure, this is not for everyone but most are capable of doing it within 20-30mins.

[pipsyp]

From experience Contis dont wear v well.

My Mk2 vRS got down to about 3mm after 9k miles and dont drive like a man possessed; put it down to Contis being quite soft along with the weight of the TDi engine and 258lb/ft torque being ripped through them.

My fabia vRS also did a front set of SC2's in about 11k miles and my wife didnt drive that thing hard at all.

[Stuarted]

Tyre rotation: I base my practice on three things

- overall cost and wear rate is the same whether you rotate tyes or not   Two pairs of tyres cost the same as four tyres - surprise!

- it is safer to have the best (i.e., least-worn) tyres on the back

- tyres can eventually die of old age even if they don't wear out.

There is one other factor: FWD cars tend to wear the fronts a lot faster than the rears,; RWD cars (usually) tend to wear the rears a little bit faster than the fronts.  (Dunno yet about 4WD; I suspect my fronts will wear a bit faster than the rears.)
_ _ _

So - what is my practice?  On my RWD car I rotate every 6,000 miles (just front-to-back, not side-to-side) and replace al four at once.  It's sports car, driven like a sports car, I use the best tyres I can get and I change them if the tread gets down near 3mm.  The Mazda MX-5 (a car which is all about handling - it's not desparately powerful!) actually does not give its best if the four tyres are not identical, rather than just "similar" or "equivalent".  By rotating the tyres the rears are never significantly more worn than the fronts.

On my ancient FWD car, when the fronts are worn out, I move the rear tyres to the front and put a pair of new tyres on the rear.  That way the tyres get rotated so that I never end up with ancient tyres on the rear, still with tread but where the carcase has failed due to old age (happened with some Michelin tyres which were on the rear when I bought the car).  Also, by doing this, I always have the better tyres on the rear.

Works for me ... 

[Dodgy]

- it is safer to have the best (i.e., least-worn) tyres on the back

 

Why is that?