Outside of front tyres worn

dawballz

I have a 99 Renault Clio.
The outsides of the two front tyres are worn and the insides of them aren;t as bad.
At a guess I'd say the outsides have about 1.4mm left and the insides have almost 2mm I'd say.
When I turn the steering wheel to the right, full lock and drive around in a circle, I notice a noise(knocking?) coming from the front left wheel. Also, for every revolution of the wheel, I can feel a slight bump(although this may have been caused by a dip in the tarmac etc.).
I suspect the two issues are related, so can anyone throw a guess as to what the problem might be? Hope it's not serious.

crosstownk

Yep - I'd say they are related alright. Your tyres are worn on the outsides because your tracking is out. The wheels are out too much and as a result, the insides of the tyre are 'scrubbing' the road.

This could be due to just tracking. But as you mention a noise, my guess is that a ball joint or track rod end is worn. Get it looked at before you put new tyres on and scrub them away.

BrianD3

The tyre wear could be just due to hard cornering. As for the noise - if it is a "cyclical" knocking noise that corresponds with the rotation of the road wheel it could be a CV joint.

dawballz

Ok,
If it is the CV joint, any idea on how much it would cost to get done?

I wouldn't say I take corners too hard, but eh... maybe it is that

crosstownk

BrianD3 wrote:

The tyre wear could be just due to hard cornering.

Hard cornering would be more likely to wear the outside of one and the inside of another - but generally as an average amount of corners are taken - the wear should be on both 'edges' of the tyre.

Both 'outsides' worn is definitely a problem with the front wheel track angles.

OP - when you turn the wheel is it a single knock you hear - like a big shifting noise, or is it a clicking as BrianD3 says?

dawballz

It seems to be a single knock at one point in the revolution of the wheel.
I'm not 100% sure how to describe it.
I only noticed it last night, and checked the tyres this morning(in the light), so I didn't really get a good chance to observe it.
But I would say it's more of a knock than a click.

crosstownk

OK - it sounds like a worn suspension link. Something is worn and is shifting when a certain amount of strain is put on it. It could be one of a variety of suspension links. But as your tracking seems to be affected then I'm still going with the ball joint and/or track rod end. It could also be the top strut mounting.

junkyard

As crosstownk says its tracking related alright, check your trackrod ends too, get your 4 wheels aligned and check your tyre pressures, that should cover everything as long as you haven't hit any potholes.:)

dawballz

Well it's highly likely I have hit potholes, I think that almost goes without saying...
If anyone knows the area around Aghaboe Abbey(Ballacolla/Durrow road) there are two very deep potholes around the abbey while heading towards Durrow...
Them there would have been the most recent culprits. Travelling at around 65-70km/h and bang, hit the pothole... but that was only about 4 days ago, so I wouldn't say the tyres would have worn that much in the ~50 miles I've done since then..
I dunno.....



edit; obviously, I have no idea how to check my trackrod ends, so I'll be bringing it to the mechanic soon enough.
It'd be nice to have an idea of what to tell them to look at though.
Just so as they dont go changing my wipers etc :rolleyes:

BrianD3

Just on the tyre wear i would have thought the outside edge of the loaded tyre would wear more than the inside edge of the "unloaded" one. I.e. if you go around a right hand bend you're putting the majority of the strain on the sidewall of your passenger side tyres.

Over many years I've always worn the outside of my passenger side tyres out first. The reason I believe is because I take right hand bends faster as with driving on the left in this country you generally have greater visibility through RH bends than LH ones. Also roundabouts wear out passenger side tyres quicker than drivers side.

I'm wafflng on now

crosstownk

BrianD3 wrote:

Just on the tyre wear i would have thought the outside edge of the loaded tyre would wear more than the inside edge of the "unloaded" one. I.e. if you go around a right hand bend you're putting the majority of the strain on the sidewall of your passenger side tyres.

Over many years I've always worn the outside of my passenger side tyres out first. The reason I believe is because I take right hand bends faster as with driving on the left in this country you generally have greater visibility through RH bends than LH ones. Also roundabouts wear out passenger side tyres quicker than drivers side.

I'm wafflng on now

You could have a point there - but excessive wear is usually due to the tyres scrubbing the ground.

Anan1

BrianD3 wrote:

Just on the tyre wear i would have thought the outside edge of the loaded tyre would wear more than the inside edge of the "unloaded" one. I.e. if you go around a right hand bend you're putting the majority of the strain on the sidewall of your passenger side tyres.

Over many years I've always worn the outside of my passenger side tyres out first. The reason I believe is because I take right hand bends faster as with driving on the left in this country you generally have greater visibility through RH bends than LH ones. Also roundabouts wear out passenger side tyres quicker than drivers side.

I'm wafflng on now

I was thinking this myself. The outside edges of my front tyres are more heavily worn than the rest of the tyre too. That said, I'm replacing my tyres tomorrow and having a 4 wheel alignment done at the same time.

sundodger5

The outside edge wear to the yres sounds mormal to me as the very small variation between both edges of the tyre is small. people tend to notice this when the tyres are very low.
The clunk is suspension related.
The bump at low speed is the structure of the tyre having failed i.e the steel belt has broken and the tyre is "twisted" needs changing urgently. This could have caused the premature wear of the suspension component.
You probably find that when you go over a certain speed that the vibration lessons and eventually smoothes out (over65mph) thisis the tyre literaly being airborn nearly all the time.
Garage a.s.a.p

mloc123

The single knock sound will be a worn top mount bearing. Its a common problem on Clios. Is it a mk1 or mk2? Not a huge problem to fix, top mount is probably about €40 and fitting of about €60 maybe. Its not a big job and should take less than an hour.