Both front tyres wearing heavily on inside

V1llianous

Hi All,

Got my 96 Corolla serviced the other day and we noticed that both the front tyres were wearing heavily on the inside.

Going to get this checked out at a tyre place, would this just be down to bad tracking etc and could it be fixed at a tyre place or could it be something more serious.

TIA
V

Gurgle

V1llianous wrote:

Hi All,

Got my 96 Corolla serviced the other day and we noticed that both the front tyres were wearing heavily on the inside.

Going to get this checked out at a tyre place, would this just be down to bad tracking etc and could it be fixed at a tyre place or could it be something more serious.

TIA
V

Had the same problem on a '95 Carina.

Its not tracking, (though I'm sure they'll adjust the tracking and take your money) its your front suspension. If the tracking was off, you would have wear on the same side of each tyre - e.g. outside on the left and inside on the right.

Both wearing on the inside is because your suspension is sagging and more weight is put on the inside of the wheels.

V1llianous

What is my best option ?

1) Take it to a main dealer and get adjusted then get the tyres replaced.

2) Go to tyre place and replace the tyres and see if they can change the suspension

or 3) go to independant mechanic to adjust suspension then change the tyres.
??

Seth Brundle

Gurgle wrote:

Had the same problem on a '95 Carina.

Its not tracking, (though I'm sure they'll adjust the tracking and take your money) its your front suspension. If the tracking was off, you would have wear on the same side of each tyre - e.g. outside on the left and inside on the right.

Both wearing on the inside is because your suspension is sagging and more weight is put on the inside of the wheels.

If the tracking is out then the tyres are not rotating parallel to each other and uneven wear will occur on either the inside or the outside. What you are saying is that the left side of both tyres would wear out in an uneven manner to both right sides.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_alignment

Gurgle

kbannon wrote:

If the tracking is out then the tyres are not rotating parallel to each other and uneven wear will occur on either the inside or the outside.

Thats what I thought.
I changed a pair of front tyres that were worn right down on the inside and still as new on the outside, and I got the tracking adjusted because the guy in the tyre place said that was the problem.

3 months later the new tyres were in the same state. I took it to a man who's been selling tyres from a shed behind his house since the late 1970s.

He took one look and said suspension.

I got a pair of shocks from a scrapyard for €60 & put them in myself. Over a year later the tyres are wearing evenly.

V1llianous wrote:

What is my best option ?

1) Take it to a main dealer and get adjusted then get the tyres replaced.

2) Go to tyre place and replace the tyres and see if they can change the suspension

or 3) go to independant mechanic to adjust suspension then change the tyres.
??

The car being 11 years old:

A main dealer will charge you a fortune for new shocks and another fortune for putting them in. Expect to shell out €400 to €600, being a fair chunk of the value of your car.

A tyre place will happily change the tyres and adjust your tracking and send you on your way.

An independant mechanic will have a good look at it and decide which is the cause of the problem.

A good, helpfull, independant mechanic will get you replacement shocks if needed from a scrapyard.

Seth Brundle

Gurgle wrote:

Thats what I thought.
I changed a pair of front tyres that were worn right down on the inside and still as new on the outside, and I got the tracking adjusted because the guy in the tyre place said that was the problem.

3 months later the new tyres were in the same state. I took it to a man who's been selling tyres from a shed behind his house since the late 1970s.

He took one look and said suspension.

But you were stating that it was "not tracking". I merely pointed out that it may well be. Actually it is more than likely alignment at the root of the OPs problem. If its not then I would look at wear with suspension or steering components.

bazz26

I think the easiest thing to start with here is to get the tracking and allignment checked once you have replaced the tyres. Also have the track rods, cambers, casters and ball joints checked for damage or wear.

macnab

Gurgle, as kbannon said it could be the tracking/alignment. Obviously in your case it was not the cause, but the symptoms are the same. The symptoms you attribute to tracking cant be caused by tracking.

JHMEG

bazz26 wrote:

cambers, casters and ball joints checked for damage or wear.

How do you check "cambers" and "casters"?:D

crosstownk

It is most likely the tracking that is out. Your car is front wheel drive. The natural tendancy for front wheel drive car is for the wheels to 'drive' toward each other ( the opposite is true for RWD). For this reason the wheels are 'toed out' to compensate. In your case it would appear that the toe-out is too much causing the inside of the tyre to scuff as the car drives - the right wheel is ever so slightly pointing right and the left wheel is pointing ever so slightly left. The fact that both front tyres are worn on the inside points to incorrect tracking.

Castor and camber, when outside tolerance, usually affect one wheel. But, if you 100% sure it's not tracking then it could be that the camber is out on both wheels. My advice would be to get 4 wheel alignment done which will measure all wheel alignment angles and settings.

ZiabR

Its the camber of the wheels, they need to be straightened.

daedalus2097

Well, inside wear can be caused by camber, but that's not always adjustable in which case it would just be worn suspension parts. You can't be sure it's the camber though, it does sound to me like the bushes are knackered on the suspension, and like someone else said, the car is sagging in the middle slightly. the bushes themselves are fairly cheap to get replaced, but there's really no way of knowing for sure until you get it to a decent independant mechanic who'll look at the whole lot for ya...

maidhc

kbannon wrote:

But you were stating that it was "not tracking". I merely pointed out that it may well be. Actually it is more than likely alignment at the root of the OPs problem. If its not then I would look at wear with suspension or steering components.

I have the exact same problem with a 1995 mondeo. It eats the tyres, and it ain't tracking. It needs a lot of new suspension components.

Obviously it is worth trying the tracking first, but I'd be expecting the worst.