More Octavia Vrs Mk3 tyre wear woes!!

[canonball]

Gooday all. Have "searched" for an answer but dosen't seem to answer my problem. Put 4 Bridgestone 225 x 40 x 18 / 92Y  Potenza S001 tyres on my 2014 Octavia Vrs in June 2016. 9 Months  / 9000 miles later the rears were past wear bars, (took me by surprise there). Fronts had 6mm left. The rear tyres had worn evenly across the whole tread area. Appreciate the Potenza's are a soft tyre so thought I would change them for a different make / model. Put a pair of Goodyear Assymetric F1 3's on and match them to a pair of fronts when they were worn out. The Goodyears were put on in March 2017 and they are nearly worn out again. They have done about k10. The original Potenza's on the front have been on for around 20 months / k19 and will need replacing at the same time as the rear's. The rear Goodyears have worn evenly again across the whole of the tread area. I read that others had a "drumming" noise, uneven wear, Saw-toothing and seemed to effect Dunlop Sport Maxx's in the main. The concensus of opinion seemed to be the rear tracking causing the wear / noise problems. But I would suggest that the tracking in my case is ok as the wear was even across the tread area. As we all know, all the rear does is hold the arse in the air where the front takes the majority of the braking / accelaration forces and steering forces. Can anybody shed some light on this as I am baffled. Thanks.

[Redboy]

Weird, mine has 27000 on the original Potenzas and they have 3-4 mm left. Are you carrying a ton of bricks in the rear ? 

Edited 15 February, 2018 by Redboy

[ahenners]

Bridgestone tyres are generally not soft from experience; they are generally quite a hard compound and usually last reasonably well.

 

As above you should definitely get more than that from a set of rears. My rear Conti Sport Contact 5 have been on for 25k and still have plenty of tread left (4-5mm).

[canonball]

I'll just go and check Redboy. Wife sits in passenger seat and would understand if it was only nearside tyres that wore!! Shes in kitchen at the mo.

[Redboy]

29 minutes ago, canonball said:

I'll just go and check Redboy. Wife sits in passenger seat and would understand if it was only nearside tyres that wore!! Shes in kitchen at the mo.

You're dead if she reads your reply .. 

[JohnnyType2]

other than Michelins, the hardest wearing tyre i've found is a budget tyre brand Hifly. The grip is decent and they are not that bad in the wet. They would run you @ £70 per corner. 

[Tim1631]

9 hours ago, JohnnyType2 said:

other than Michelins, the hardest wearing tyre i've found is a budget tyre brand Hifly. The grip is decent and they are not that bad in the wet. They would run you @ £70 per corner. 

 

You can get UniroyalRainsport 3 for less than that

[Guest]

15 hours ago, canonball said:

Put 4 Bridgestone 225 x 40 x 18 / 92Y  Potenza S001 tyres on my 2014 Octavia Vrs in June 2016. 9 Months  / 9000 miles later the rears were past wear bars, (took me by surprise there). Fronts had 6mm left. The rear tyres had worn evenly across the whole tread area.  As we all know, all the rear does is hold the arse in the air where the front takes the majority of the braking / accelaration forces and steering forces. Can anybody shed some light on this as I am baffled. Thanks.

'

9 mths/9000 miles seems ridiculous but just lets ignore that (and call you Lewis Hamilton ) for the moment.  Just to confirm, are you saying 4 new tyres were put on a fwd car and the fronts outlasted the rears? Something very, very wrong with that. Are you running them all at the same pressure? If so then get your tracking / alignment checked out. If that's OK then sounds like a suspension issue.

[canonball]

Thanks all for your input. Will be going back to the Bridgestones all round. Had no problems apart from rear tyre wear......and as the Goodyears also seem to wear out quickly on the rear, i'll just put it down to a "Design" fault and let it go. Just mentioned it as I think it defies logic. When I had my DSG oil changed I mentioned it to the dealer, who said that certain tyres have been known not to work well on Octavia Vrs's, and the Potenzas was not one of them. He didn't have a clue to the wear issue either. Never mind. Moving on.

[canonball]

Sorry Scot5. Typing at the same time as yourself. Yes...all 4 tyres fitted at the same time. After 9 months my son told me my rears are on / past wear indicator. Lewis........more like Arthur Daly.....close to 65 but enjoy an occasional "dust off the cobwebs" with the Vrs or the Fireblade. But I can't get my head around a mechanical problem. I would think any tracking / suspension issues would show up in a tyre wear indication, ie worn side / middle of tread. Others have a saw tooth wear / inside edge wear indication with drumming noise issues. I have none of these indications. I am looking at my invoice and tyre safety report as I type and the front Potenzas have 6mm of tyre left on each front...6-6-6 across both tyres. The rears are 3-3-3 and 2-3-3. I do not have a lot of confidence in tyre "shops" as the results depend on the operator at that time, but I have found a Nissan GTR garage that run Hunter Hawkeye 4 wheel tracking equipment. Maybe they can get to the bottom of this. Does seem that I am the only person with this problem so perhaps it is a mechanical issue with my car and not a generic Skoda issue. Sorry Skoda!!

[finnster01]

That does seem odd, had my first service a few weeks ago the front were down to about 3mm as expected but the rears still had 6mm on them - this is after 20K miles.

 

It would seem that mechanically something is amis if your rears are wearing down first especially the amount they have after 9K - unless you have a 4 wheel drive  - even though it seems excessive.

[CCTaylor]

I think you need to find a specialist 4-wheel alignment centre. 

[Guest]

Agreed with above. Go get a specialist to do a Geometry check to ensure no issues. I got 30K out a set of rears. 

[Petunet]

On 15.2.2018 at 20:10, canonball said:

9 Months  / 9000 miles later the rears were past wear bars, (took me by surprise there). Fronts had 6mm left. The rear tyres had worn evenly across the whole tread area.

 

I have the same issue, 13 000 miles on the clock I noticed my rear tyres were gone, while the front tyres have about 6mm left. That's with the original Bridgestone 18" Potenza's.

Now with Continental 18" winter tyres the rears are worn 1,5mm more than the front tyres after 7 000 miles.

 

I have checked the alignment in 2 different places, at the dealer's and at a local garage I know very well.

My tyres are worn a bit more on the outside but that's me, not the car. 

 

On the rear axle the Camber is -2.3°, which is a bit more than recommendation but good for me.

The Toe is 2.0mm and the recommendation is 1.7 ±1.1mm so well within limits.

 

Mine is a 4x4 and a bit heavier on the back with all the audio equipment and sound proofing and I thought it might be the reason. But maybe not.

 

[canonball]

Thanks for the info Petunet. I will, if time permits get the 4 wheel tracking done next week. Hopefully get some info / advice back from the garage to explain my problem.......compare with your info also. Probably the settings on your 4be will be different but possibly upload my before and after results for others to check against their results. May be interesting as all should be the same ish!

[BATVANVRS]

As mentioned above get 4 wheel tracking done...but do none of you folk rotate your wheels from back to front (like every 9-12 months?) just to make the tyres last longer? I do rotate my wheels & find my tyres wear evenly, currently on Nokian Weatherproof 225 x 40 x 18  13,000 miles done & have between 5-6mm left all-round.

[Petunet]

Well, yes on 2 wheel drive cars four times a year but I've never had to do that in a 4x4 car.

 

[Petunet]

I heard another Skoda driver was having rear tyre problems; they increased the rear tyre pressures and it helped.

So I raised the pressure from 2.9bar to 3.2bar on the rear, fronts are still 2.9bar.

We'll see what happens.

 

Edited 5 March, 2018 by Petunet
typos

[carrock]

could be something to do with rear camber

 

too much neg camber would cause the inside shoulder to wear and leave the rest of the tread unworn

 

I usually get 25k front and 50k rear from tyres

[Petunet]

 

16 hours ago, carrock said:

could be something to do with rear camber

 

too much neg camber would cause the inside shoulder to wear and leave the rest of the tread unworn

 

I usually get 25k front and 50k rear from tyres

 

On 15.2.2018 at 20:10, canonball said:

The rear tyres had worn evenly across the whole tread area.

 

On 17.2.2018 at 09:32, Petunet said:

I have checked the alignment in 2 different places, at the dealer's and at a local garage I know very well.

My tyres are worn a bit more on the outside but that's me, not the car. 

 

 

[nidza]

Check rear toe, this can cause even but excessive wear. Has the car suffered an accident? 

 

Weight distribution and FWD on vRS should slightly more wear front wheels, not rears. 

[VRS TDi CR estate]

Interesting reading this post as I had a MK2 VRS TDi estate and it sounded like there was a rear bearing gone. It went into Skoda twice and they replaced a rear wheel bearing and it still made the noise. To cut a long story short, they noticed that the inner edge of the rear tyres had scrubbed and were making the noise like a bearing had gone. They sent it for 4 wheel alignment and it was adjusted. I went to collect it and found that they had sent it back as the data they had given the company was wrong and Skoda had accepted that there was a problem and given them some new data which was slightly different. They even agreed to buy a new tyre as a good will gesture ( I had to buy the other ).  This solved the problem. The tyres were Dunlop Sport Maxx RT which I replaced with Goodyear F1's.

 

Bought a 2014MK3 vRS TDi DSG  hatch and never had a problem with rear tyre wear. Ran it on Goodyear but last tyres were replaced with Michelin PS4's, which I have to say are the best tyres I have ever run.

 

I swapped again in November 17 to a vRS TDi DSG 4x4 as I love the cars and 4x4 was not available last time in a vRS. The car had done 7k when I bought it and was on Bridgestones. They were down to 4mm all around. I fitted a set of MK2 18" wheels and winter tyres at the end of November and have done 2k since then. When I put them on they were evenly worn  on the rear (Nokian WR A3's). A couple of weeks ago I went down a pothole and it dislodged the sidewall and when I took it to my usual tyre shop which was nearby, I noticed that the inner edge was almost totally devoid of tread. It was still legal but not ideal. I phoned Lookers in Manchester, where I bought it from and the service dept. stated that as the car had covered more than 6k miles than it was a wear and tear issue and that I should book it in so that they could put it on their diagnostics. I decided that as I will be swapping back to summer wheels in the next month, I will go to my local specialist who will check and adjust it for £75 rather than wasting a day trailing to Manchester only to be charged £150 for the same. I will see if I still have the data sheet and will add it.

Edited 6 March, 2018 by VRS TDi CR estate
Photo added

[BigK]

I'm wondering if this could be some kind of XDS/Braking problem and the rear brakes are getting engaged alot by the Stability control increasing the tyre wear. Have you had a lot of rear brake wear as well?

 

No Front wheel drive car's rear tyres should wear quicker than the front as they do very little work as the fronts take care of most of traction/braking/steering forces. 

[HotVRs]

This is plain weird for that level of wear. I have the original Dunlop SportMaxx on the rear of mine after 56,000 miles, and they are still on at least 5 mm. The fronts are Goodyear Eagle F1 assymetric's that were fitted 30,000 miles ago and are on 4mm. Never had tyre wear so little on any other car.

[canonball]

Skoda tracking.pdfSkoda tracking.pdf

Gooday all. Thanks for all the interest in my little problem. Hopefully i've attached the tracking results. If they fail to appear I will have another go. The fitter initially told me that the fronts were ok and the rear passenger side was slightly out. He adjusted the Left rear which thenput the fronts out, which he adjusted back. Interestingly, when I inspected the old rear tyres, although they looked evenly worn, on closer inspection the driver side one had a "wear scuff" mark around 30mm from inside edge. Perhaps the Goodyear F1 tread showed this more as I never noticed this on the Bridgestone's. The tread depth on the inner side was slightly less than the outside. This wheel was in tolerence. The passenger side measured roughly the same across the tread, no scuff mark but was "out" of tolerence, and when adjusted put the fronts out. Well...the tracking was out so hopefully in k9 miles time they will be half worn...I hope! Mind...I like Sneaky Pete's results as they are so Green and even. Mine's Red and large differences in the numbers. There again...just had a week of driving the North Wales scenic railway type roads and handling was faultless. Thanks for the interest.