Cars just been in for its 3rd/30k service......guess what rear tyres are shagged as its been sawtoothing them.

I must confess (and partly my own fault) I have not checked the wear levels accurately as it was only serviced earlier in the year and no wear concerns were raised....also rears should have hardly weared in 29k miles. Id also not noticed any droning.

They are 4/4.5mm outside to middle....just over 2 at the inner edges.

So two new rears to be ordered......wife uses it now and barely covers 5k/year...also want to look to get shot of it later next year maybe earlier 2017 latest so I dont want to go down the road of getting it 4 wheel alligned...down to cost and possibly getting made worse....if it were still doing 25/30k per year then of course id do it.

A bit annoying though...and there was me saying its been entirely trouble free!

Mate did provide some confort though...in his experience lots of new cars do this to their rears and 30k on its not so bad.....they are crap Dunlops which have started to crack a bit too so Hankooks here we come.

What sort of Dunlop's are they

My new SEL had Dunlop Sport Maxx RT on. I hope I do not get the dreaded sawtoothing

I will keep a close eye on them and change them round to the front every 10000 miles

 

I had a new Octy 2 FL VRS diesel in 2010 and they got the stepped edges on the rears, they were Dunlop Sport Maxx but not RT's

My rears have gone the same too after about 20k miles. I presume thats where the whooping noise is coming from? Sport max RT's I think. Would moving them to the front to wear them down quicker be a quick fix?

Are Sport Maxx RT's chaps....not the best tyre Ive ever experienced. Grip/noise etc are pretty good they just seemingly dont wear v well.

I changed the original fronts for another set of RT's....they were quite pricey and didnt wear well....i noticed the outer tread just before the side wall were cracking, both on the newer fronts and rears just before I changed them which isnt good.

On the advice of my mate (who eased my worries about sawtoothing....is a v experienced car/race car mechanic) I replaced the 2nd set with some Hankook Ventus V12 Evo 2's....far cheaper (about £30/tyre)...better dry and wet grip, quieter and from what I can see wearing far better too. That'll be going on the rears....cant recommend them highly enough....to be fair they are now OEM fitment on some BMW and Mercs.

He suggested many new cars do sawtooth rear tyres to some degree because of how they are set up out of the factory....30k miles from a set of rears apparently isnt all that bad.

He said the problem with getting the allignment done is that of course if it isnt done well (and I must confess I dont have anyone down my way I can trust with it) it could just make the matter worse, or just alter how the wear occurs...but if it were killing tyres sooner then it would be worth taking the risk.

The car does far fewer miles in my wifes hands than when I had it, also Im looking to offload it as soon as I can justify doing so, so am loathe to throw £70/80 at it to get the allignment done if I am never likely to stick another set of tyres on it. If it were still doing 25/30k miles per year average (we moved and I started doing between 2 and 2.5k miles per month in it for about 12 months) then I would no doubt do something about it.

Edited 14 December, 201510 yr by pipsypreturns

Can't you just swap the wheels round? I did and they quietened down.

Dill

While they shouldn't sawtooth....you should probably check them more often  And yeah 30k miles isnt bad.  No tyre I've had would be 'hardly worn' after 30k on the back and I'm not hard on tyres  (10k in my vrs has worn the fronts to just below/on 5mm, rears have worn half as much just hitting 6.5mm left). thats with the soft oem sport contact 2s.  In fact I think the manual says something about rotating them every 10k km (not sure on that distance, but its less than 30k miles!)

Having the car set up on a Hunter rig makes a world of difference - it certainly did with my Mk2 FL vRS.  My latest vRS (bought with 5,500 miles on the clock) was checked and one of the rear wheels was outside tolerance.  Had all four wheels set up correctly for peace of mind as much as anything.  It makes things quieter and saves the tyres - well worth doing. 

Can't you just swap the wheels round? I did and they quietened down.

Dill

Perhaps but the tread levels have gotten that low that its probably beyond that point now.

While they shouldn't sawtooth....you should probably check them more often And yeah 30k miles isnt bad. No tyre I've had would be 'hardly worn' after 30k on the back and I'm not hard on tyres (10k in my vrs has worn the fronts to just below/on 5mm, rears have worn half as much just hitting 6.5mm left). thats with the soft oem sport contact 2s. In fact I think the manual says something about rotating them every 10k km (not sure on that distance, but its less than 30k miles!)

Absolutely fair comment nieln, I should have checked them more carefully..and frankly more frequently no excuses really.

The tyres other than the just legal inner edges had over 4mm tread left so can only assume the car has a little too much negative camber on the rear.

Agree tyre rotation is not a bad idea....its often remembering to do it and finding the time for me thats the problem.....i tend to change the fronts as required and the rears perhaps with every 3 to 4 sets of fronts depending on how they are doing. Having had a number of diesel VAG cars ive found they munch front tyres but are typically very light onnthe rears...this is the first Ive had with sawtoothing though.

Problem I have is that this used to be my car that I ran for work on car allowance...change in living and working circumstances (and a vast increase in annual mileage) drove me to taking a company car...however the equity position on the Octavia is that bad I am stuck with running it as a 2nd car for the wife now....in a perfect world it'd have been long gone.

So with some resentment that Im forced to keep the car, pay the finance (without the car allowance) and also pay reasonably steep taxation on my company car I just want to spend as little as possible on it in the time we have to keep it....so it'll get new tyres but it does so few miles now (from circa 30k/year to maybe 4.5) the sawtoothing isnt the issue it would have been....i also dont want to end up paying £70/80 to get it 4 wheel alligned somewhere for the problem to be made worse (and it then become a money pit to resolve). My heart says to get it sorted as I dont like running a car with a potential problem (rather OCD like that but my head simply says dont spend the money as its costing enough as is.

Ironically drives perfectly well and as far as I can tell doesnt drone either so no great shakes.

Having the car set up on a Hunter rig makes a world of difference - it certainly did with my Mk2 FL vRS. My latest vRS (bought with 5,500 miles on the clock) was checked and one of the rear wheels was outside tolerance. Had all four wheels set up correctly for peace of mind as much as anything. It makes things quieter and saves the tyres - well worth doing.

Agreed but much as my reply to neiln, got maybe another 12/18 months to go on the PCP and will be handing back or VT'ing it whichever opportunity makes the most sense...also doing so few miles in it now that its not going to need a new set of boots any time soon anyway.