Rear Tyre Wear

[Guest beardyone]

I've had a lucky escape... I knew I needed new fronts but the guy at the local Kwik-Fit also looked over the rears on my 37,000 mile, Y reg LX estate and announced they were both down to the canvas on their inside edges.

 

I was gobsmacked because on both wheels all but the radiused part on the inner edge looked like a new tyre. Unless you were looking for this wear, you'd just do as I did, and assume all was well. I don't tow, the car really does just do light duty stuff (shopping and 4 passengers max) and it sits right with regard to height.

 

I've noticed that the estates seem to have 'kicked-out' wheels and I suppose this wear results from this setup. The thing is, are they all like this, or is mine an extreme example?

 

At

[Guest Andyjflet]

What PSI did you run the rears at, sound like it could have been too much hence the inner tyre area making contact with the road more than then outer part, releasing some pressure would enable more tyre area to be in contact with the tarmac.

[Ivor_E_Tower]

That dooesn't sound right - if you put too much pressure in, the tyre "balloons" and the centre will make contact with the edges not wearing as fast.

Sounds like the rear toe-in/toe-out is incorrectly set - could be worth getting a geometry check done, and scouring the supermarket car parks and checking tyre wear patterns on other, similar, Mondeos.

[Dave-G]

Have kack-fit done any work on your car previously? . .like tracking? . .I ask this because a national firm with a name like this kacked up my front tracking,which I only discoverred several weeks later after noticing the inner tread getting low.It seems "there was a fault in the laser thingy tool" Another branch corrected the problem foc. . .but the area manager who was going to do something about the loss of tread never rang back.

[Guest beardyone]

Tyre pressures always as per spec and, as Ivor said, over-inflation wears the middle; conversely, under inflation wears the outsides.

 

Asymmetric wear of the type I've had has to relate to geometry but there doesn't appear to be any form of adjustment, in any case, it isn't likely that both rear wheel alignments should be off to exactly the same extent, is it?

 

As for Kwik-Fit, I had the same doubts re competence, and wouldn't have them do anything technical beyond replacing tyres. However, I do have to thank the guy that discovered my accelerated wear, he might have saved my life... when I say down to the canvas, both tyres really were and could have blown out at high speed anytime, scary.

 

I've tried looking round the car parks Dave, but people give me funny looks.... Seriously, the Mondeos I've looked at don't indicate that my problem is rife, but then, I haven't looked at many and in any case, if they haven't done so many miles or have newish rubber, it'd be hard to tell.

 

I think I'll contact Ford Technical to see what they say.

 

Thanks guys,

Regards,

Pete

[Ivor_E_Tower]

I suspect that the first thing they will say is get the geometry checked - and for your own peace of mind, I suggest that you get this done soon. The real problem could be that you have out-of-spec bits on the car, but Ford may contend that you have damaged it on kerbs, speeed humps etc and may not re-imburse you if the geometry is out, unless an obvious manufacturing defect or assembly error can be found.

Good luck in getting this matter resolved.