Good evening everyone,

 

Bit of a long one this. So I apologise in advance. I'll keep it as short as possible. 

 

Monday, I purchased 4 x new tyres for my 2019 octavia vrs estate. I went for Michelin Pilot Sport 5s. I also asked the tyre shop to check the alignment. I was happy with how it currently was, but thought with 4 brand new tyres going on I'd best check it at least. To mu surprise there were a lot of adjustments made. 

 

I took the car away and drove less than  a mile home. Didn't get about 10 mph.

 

Yesterday, I drove to Bristol - first time on the new setup. As soon as I started to brake from A road speeds, my car started to shudder and shake. Not violently, but enough to be definitely noticeable. Especially slowing between 50 and 40mph. In town driving, he shudder is barely noticeable- if at all.

 

I went back to the tyre shop this morning. They removed and rebalanced the rear wheels and said try that (I said i felt the movemet was coming from the back end) No difference!! This afternoon I took I back again and insisted they check the alignment. The right rear and front left were out!!! On their machine. A decent setup i might add. But it didn't seem to list the octavia with independent rear suspension, as on the VRS. Anyway, the guy corrected the wheels as directedby the machine. I left hopeful that this would fix the issue. But no.. Still shudders under braking. 👎

 

I am reluctant to believe this is to do with warped discs etc. As when I drove the car in on the old tyres it was tracking straight and true with no brake shudder at all. 

 

I'm taking the car back Friday now for the manager to drive so that he can understand my issue and realise I am not just being an annoying customer. 

 

Any advice, help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. 

 

The pictures are the readings from their machine I took on my phone this afternoon when they realigned the wheels.

 

I absolutely love my car, but right now I'm hating driving it. 😭 Really regretting asking them to check the alignment.

Sorry, i can't say. 

If it happened while driving i would have gone with the balance, but on braking... No clue

Are you on the stock rims?

If it’s on braking I’d be checking disc run out with a DTI gauge (hopefully the garage has one, most probably don’t with a replace instead of repair mindset)

 

for the alignment, the machine is only as good as the person using it, not setting the car up properly or very slight errors in following the process can cause massive differences in the outcome of the machine. 
 

im not saying they’re bad or it’s related but it will 100% require looking into.

 

another possibility is they have torn the rear bushes when adjusting the rear tracking (they often seize in) and this is causing the vibration.

If the geometry is out, you might want to look and make sure that all the bolts on the sub-frame are properly tight.  Next I would look at the suspension setup.  VAG cars (especially the Golf's, Octavia and Leon's) experience issues with the geometry if the struct towers are rusty or the struct tops are worn.  This will require the upper and lower swingarms to be removed and the strut tested for movement.  The other thing is the struct itself can rust and leak (make sure you assiduously clean under the wheel arches and suspension areas, because the strut tops collect dirt and they rust through).

I suspect either the wheel bolts are not torqued up correctly or the discs (probably the fronts) now have run out after the wheels were removed to replace the tyres.