I run from April - November 225-45-17 summer tyres and 205-55-16 winter tyres from November - April (both alloy wheel rims respectively). I have four Continental TS 850 winter tryes that have done two seasons (starting tyre depth was 7mm). Tyres were balanced (summer and winter tyres) and aligned (only 17" rims) at time of purchase. After checking the tyres before this winter season begins, I've noticed that the inside edge of each tyre is 3mm (illegal tyre depth in this country), the middle and outside edge of each tyre varies between 4-6mm (legal tyre depth). I'm wondering what may have caused this, as I check my tyre pressures each week. Should the wheels be aligned each time I swap from 17" rims (summer) to 16" rims (winter)? Many thanks in advance.

Welcome.

 

Which country is that in?

 

Your Steering / suspension alignment needs checked if you think it is wrong and before it causes any prematurely wearing of tyres.

So as well to get the wheels / tyres on and see if the alignment is out with someone doing 4 wheel alignment with all the gear an more than just an idea, but the correct figures and the skills to make any adjustments.

Edited 6 October, 20187 yr by Offski

Thanks, Offski. After I changed from winter to summer tyres this year, I had the wheel alignment checked and they were fine. The summer tyres show no adverse wearing of the tyres like the winter ones do (inside edge of tyre 2-4mm difference to the centre and outside edge of the tyre). I can't find anything online that tells me that I should have my wheels aligned each time I put a different dimension of rim on the car. I need to buy a new set of winter tyres for this season and would like to make sure I don't encounter this uneven wearing of the tyres after one season.

Probably you can not find anything telling you to because nobody is telling you to, but you have wrecked a pair of tyres so maybe a good idea that you check.

Once bitten twice shy.

I agree with you, and I will have the wheel alignment checked once I put the new set of winter tyres on at the end of this month. My major concern is that I will have to check the wheel alighment each time I switch my tyres as they are both running on different rims (17", summer and 16", winter). If this is the case, then I think it would be more cost-effective to have either all 17" or 16" rims, which would hopefully keep the wheel alignment correct for both sets of tyres.

I run 17" summer and 16" winter tyres and have never had a problem without checking alignment on each change over.

Thanks for your helpful comment, Anddenton. I wish I could say the same. It makes me think further why my winter tyres are wearing dangerously uneven across the tread and my summer tyres are wearing at an even rate consistent with the mileage. I'm quite stumped by it all, and the main thing I don't want is to buy a new set of winter tyres and the same thing happen again. This was my reasoning in thinking that the wheel alignment may have to be different between 17" and 16" rims, but that doesn't seem to be the case in your experience.

Front or rear?

 

I've discovered mine wears tyres evenly until the rear is really heavily laden (in my case people and lots of heavy luggage for about 2000 miles in France) where the inside edge of the rear tyres can wear quickly.  The independent rear suspension sags a bit and you end up with excessive negative camber.

 

I wish I could find air adjustable shocks like I fitted to my father’s Volvo Estate many years ago - adjustable by an air compressor from a valve in the boot.

 

I also have a set of TS850's (will fit agan soon!) that have never been driven as above and they are showing little sign of any wear. All my tyres are 205/55 16

 

Edited 6 October, 20187 yr by bigjohn

That's an interesting observation, bigjohn--thanks. Both front and rear tyres have worn to 3mm on the inside edge of the tread, with 6mm in the middle of the tread leading to 4mm on the outside edge. My main travelling is done each summer with two trips with a combined mileage of 4,700 miles. Other summer driving consists of 100 mile round trips and town driving. The car is fully occupied and laden heavily in the rear on my two main summer trips. My 17" tyres have done this trip three years in a row and are only showing 5mm from 8mm when I bought them from new. I find that more that an acceptable level of wear, especially since I'm running Sava UHP 225/45R17. On the flip side, my Continental TS850 winter tyres do a lot of town driving, with some 100 mile round trips, depending on the weather. So it seems my wear seems to be happening in an opposite way to your experience.

What are your rims? are they the correct sort for the Octavia? My Superb(not Octavia) was fitted with Spectrum 16" alloys from new and I bought a second set of identical Spectrums from "Briskoda wheels and tyres" to fit winter tyres as at the time the original Continental tyres still had loads of tread(lasted 35k miles) . Thus far my TS850's fitted to Spectrum alloys have done 12362 miles (I'm sad that way!) and are showing very little wear. 

 

I'm starting to wonder if you have the wrong wheels (offset etc) especially if it is hapenning to all the wheels front or back. 

 

How many miles have you TS850's done? Dont forget on some tyres you start with much less tread at the edge compared to the centre when new. I'e stopped buying Goodyear tyres because of this.

 

 

Edited 6 October, 20187 yr by bigjohn

I bought a set of Autec rims with the dimensions (5 x 112, 6.5J x 16H2, ET50). I did check this forum before purchasing them to ensure that these were the correct 16" rims for my car. I have found this forum invaluable for information and help for issues I've had with my car. The link below shows the exact wheels that I have fitted on the car in winter.

https://autec-wheels.de/en/design-program/type-i-ionik-mystic-silver.html

 

Also, I have measured all around the tread of each tyre more carefully and the front tyres have slightly more uneven tread than the back tyres. I haven't rotated the tyres in the two seasons that I've used them.

Edited 7 October, 20187 yr by Steva
Adding additional information.

Have you had the car from new ? if not could it have been involved in an accident and poorly repaired ? back in the day I bought a cheap ford escort that I knew was crash repaired and it used to eat tyres and nothing several tyre places doing tracking etc made much if any difference.

Thanks for your comment, seriesdriver. I have had the car for three years now. I would have no way of knowing if the car was involved in an accident and poorly repaired, as the car was imported into the country. I did have some work completed on the track rod ends (replaced) in the first year. The mechanic at the Skoda garage gave the car a thorough inspection plus drive, and commented how well the car looked underneath, which seems consistent with the sales pitch at the time of purchase (one very careful owner, with service history). The one thing I don't understand is why my summer tyres are wearing normally, when they are the ones that do the bulk of the yearly mileage and my winter tyres are shot, when they do a fraction of the distance. The winter tyres are also one season younger than the summer tyres.

Pardon me if I'm stating the obvious but Winter tyres are a softer compound than Summer ones and are designed with particular expected temperature ranges and conditions in mind.  Is it possible the warmer than usual Winters we've been having have meant that your tyres are wearing faster than expected?  Any feedback available from the tyre makers on this?

I hear what your saying, StickyMicky--thanks. The winters have been unusally warm. In March the temperatures were in the low 20's some days, which is never a good thing for winter tyres, but I can't change them until April 1st by law. My major concern is the 3mm depth of tread on the inside edge of the tyre. It's consistent on all four tyres, as is the 4mm on the outside edge of each tyre. The only difference is the 5mm middle tread on the front tyres and the 6mm middle tread on the rear tyres. The difference in the tread in the middle of the tyres could be accounted for the reason that I've not rotated the tyres in two seasons. It is just the inside tread that now makes my tyres illegal for winter use, which I think is a great shame since there is 5-6mm tread in the middle of the tyres, and that I meticulously check my tyre pressures each week.

@Steva: I note you saying you check your tyre pressures on a regular basis but given the wear pattern across the tyre - classically from an underinflated tyre - is there any chance the tyre pressures you are using are incorrect for the tyres/wheels/load etc.?

 

21 hours ago, StickyMicky said:

Pardon me if I'm stating the obvious but Winter tyres are a softer compound than Summer ones and are designed with particular expected temperature ranges and conditions in mind.  Is it possible the warmer than usual Winters we've been having have meant that your tyres are wearing faster than expected?  Any feedback available from the tyre makers on this?

 

The general rule says that warmer weather makes them wear quicker, however....

 

When I brought my Oct 2 Scout it had some form of Falken tyres on and the inners were badly worn.  I got 4 new Continental winter Contact TS860 fitted and then had a 4 wheel Geo done.  I ran these from November 2016 to November 2017, at which point I had 4 brand new Winter Contis fitted again - All 4 tyres had worn perfectly even.

 

Additionally I went through 3 sets of Winter tyres on my A4 Quattro (Nankang Snow Vivas, Toyo Snow Proxes & Vrederstein Wintrac Extreme), running them all year round.  apart from the Nankang they also all wore evenly.

 

The Conti is a good tyre so you shouldnt get bad wear - You definitley had a 4 wheel Geo done when the summers went on as opposed to just tracking?

@StickyMicky--thanks. I think I've fallen into the trap of relying on the guage on my pump, which may be out, and thus underinflates my tyres. One interesting scenario last winter was that that I pumped my tyres up at the local petrol station, and had a right job with the valves losing air through the process. I finally got 2.2 on all four tyres registered on the machine. Because of the problem with the valves, I went to see the mechanic who changes my tyres, the next day. He said the valves were okay (although, I will insist that they are replaced, when I buy my new set of tyres). He did check the tyre pressure and they all read 3.0 on his guage (0.8 over-inflated). I'm going to buy a new pump and pressure guage to see if that also makes a different this season.

Thank you for your comment, ScoutCJB. When I had the wheel alignment last checked (April), I had my summer 17" rims on and the guy said everything was perfect. This made me think that maybe the winter 16" rims required a different setting and thus the uneven wear was caused by this. Yesterday, I checked my tyre depth on all my summer tyres and they are pretty much 6mm across the tread, with an even distribution. I think that 2mm in three seasons is pretty good going for Sava UHP tyres. I would say that these tyres have done over 20,000 miles already. Once I get my new set of winter tyres fitted, I'll go to the guy who does the wheel alignment/tracking and get them checked out again with the 16" rims on. I'll update at the end of the month, to let everyone know his findings.

On 06/10/2018 at 11:13, Offski said:

Which country is that in?

It's Serbia and I've also taken the liberty of updating @Steva's profile location as he might not know where to do it.

On 07/10/2018 at 17:13, StickyMicky said:

@Steva: I note you saying you check your tyre pressures on a regular basis but given the wear pattern across the tyre - classically from an underinflated tyre - is there any chance the tyre pressures you are using are incorrect for the tyres/wheels/load etc.?

 

 

That was going to be my guess as well - 3-4mm on the outside and 6mm in the middle would suggest that the tyres are underinflated rather than anything being off with the suspension geometry.

 

Your best bet  would be to buy a decent tyre pressure gauge and check the pressures at home before you move the car

 

I have one of these that I keep in the boot

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/RACE-RX0014-Tyre-Pressure-Gauge/dp/B000VZ8S26/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1487627457&sr=1-5&keywords=tyre+pressure+gauge&linkCode=li2&tag=bestreviewer1-21&linkId=8dfe0a4dc36f1ca2e8803b5da177830f

 

Another thing to consider is that as the temperatures can change by quite a bit you need to keep checking them all through the winter

 

Sorry if I am telling you things that you already know but might be handy for some

Thank you for your comment and your recommendation for a decent tyre pressure gauge, Delberthot. It looks like a good piece of kit and I should purchase one shortly. Yesterday I bought a mini compressor and tried it out on my winter tyres. The seal was solid on the valves and it effortlessly inflated my tyres to 2.2. After hearing what many people have said on this thread, I will have to deduce that my foot pump that I've used is faulty (seal not tight on the valve, which makes it constantly loose air and the guage not being accurate). I also had problems at several garages in town with their air inflation machine (poor seal especially).

@steva: +1 from me on the mini compressor, although I bought mine from Lidl a couple of weeks back for £14.99 ...

 

Same here, StickyMicky. I got mine from Lidl yesterday and cost 1,299 dinars, which is less than £10. It was worth the very early start, as over half of them were gone within half an hour of the store opening. I still think that I shouldn't just trust the gauge on the compressor, but should buy a dedicated tyre pressure gauge to ensure I have the right tyre pressures from now on. Is "+1" your rating of the compressor? Does that mean you don't rate this compressor very much?

1 hour ago, Steva said:

Is "+1" your rating of the compressor? Does that mean you don't rate this compressor very much?

 

No, the "+1" means I agree with your comments.  I've had a few mini compressors over the years and this one seems the most robust. Time will tell how long-lasting it is ...

 

Interesting BTW that Lidl can still make a profit selling the compressor in Serbia at less than £10. Either they're making an obscene markup on their UK offerings or the UK is a much more expensive place to do business.