Tyres wearing on passenger outside edge

burly

Hi all,

Going for NCT next week. Just had a look at my tyres. Thread depth is fine on all four, except that on both left wheels, (front and rear) there is significant wear on the outside edge, and the outside thread is close to nothing,which will probably fail the test. Going mad because the rest if the tyre threads are fine.

I always get tracking done when getting new tyres. Last set of tyres were 15 months ago,and were tracked. Do about 10,000-15,000km a year.

Any ideas why the wear is so uneven on the passenger side of the car?

fasttalkerchat

Are you sure its not balancing you get done? Sounds like you need alignment.

burly

excuse my ignorance but can you tell me the difference between tracking, balancing and alignment please?

BohsCeltic

burly wrote: »

excuse my ignorance but can you tell me the difference between tracking, balancing and alignment please?

Alignment/Tracking



Balancing

mickdw

Balancing with stop shivering feeling through the steering at speed.

Tracking/alignment will ensure proper wear and make the car handle properly.
Get alignment done on car to see if there are any obvious issues such as worn or bent components. If inner and other edges are wearing, that would be lack of air pressure if its just the outer edge, id say your geometry is out so needs alignment.

slimjimmc

burly wrote: »

Hi all,

Going for NCT next week. Just had a look at my tyres. Thread depth is fine on all four, except that on both left wheels, (front and rear) there is significant wear on the outside edge, and the outside thread is close to nothing,which will probably fail the test. Going mad because the rest if the tyre threads are fine.

I always get tracking done when getting new tyres. Last set of tyres were 15 months ago,and were tracked. Do about 10,000-15,000km a year.

Any ideas why the wear is so uneven on the passenger side of the car?

The criteria for thread depth is

Depth of less than 1 .6mm in the central three-quarters of the
tread pattern.

(NCT manual pg 63 ).
If your tyres are better than this limit then they'll pass the thread depth test.

burly

slimjimmc wrote: »

The criteria for thread depth is
(NCT manual pg 63 ).
If your tyres are better than this limit then they'll pass the thread depth test.

Thanks for that slimjimmc, so even if the outside thread is poor, and the inside three threads are well above the thread wear indicators, they should pass then according to that rule?

7ofBrian

Bring it to a mechanic and ask for four wheel caster and camber allignment to be done. will cost around 60 and will take less than an hour. this should sort ya

burly

7ofBrian wrote: »

Bring it to a mechanic and ask for four wheel caster and camber allignment to be done. will cost around 60 and will take less than an hour. this should sort ya

Cheers. Il do that.

Just one more query, I recently got a quote for tyres from couple of places. When I tried to haggle a bit, they offered to 'throw in the tracking for free'. Im assuming that this 'tracking' is just bull$hit they say to customers who dont know any better? Alignment sounds like more than a 'throw in for free' job. And it it costs €60, they wouldnt be throwing it in for free surely?

Right?

hare

cant understand the back tyre being wore unless its tyre pressure.

7ofBrian

Heres a quick diagram explaining wheel alignment if it helps:

7ofBrian

burly wrote: »

Cheers. Il do that.

Just one more query, I recently got a quote for tyres from couple of places. When I tried to haggle a bit, they offered to 'throw in the tracking for free'. Im assuming that this 'tracking' is just bull$hit they say to customers who dont know any better? Alignment sounds like more than a 'throw in for free' job. And it it costs €60, they wouldnt be throwing it in for free surely?

Right?

I reckon they could be telling the truth. They will already have the car up on the lift if they are doing all 4 tires and the 40 mins or so spent doing the alignment is worth it for the 4 or 5 hundred euro sale they have nabbed in the process. The €60 is a pure labour cost.

neddynasty

Would the wear on the outside of the tyre front and back have anything to do with the fact we drive on the left hand side of the road and the edge of the road is usually in poor condition so wears the tyre more?

burly

I generally drive on motorway and city, roads tend to be good.

I initialy thought was I taking too many right hand turns, putting pressure on outside of left tyres!!

Nissan doctor

@OP, you say you had your alignment done over a year ago and estimate that this could be 15k or more. That is more then enough time and mileage for wheel alignment to have gone out of spec.
You could drive out of the alignment place and hit a pothole and the alignment would be off again.

Tracking is just adjustment of the wheel toe angles, proper wheel alignment checks/adjusts all the wheel/hub angles and is the only way to get a proper picture of any tyre wear or handling issues.
Wheel balancing is a separate thing altogether.


The places that throw in tracking for free with tyres will normally just do a basic front wheel tracking(if they do anything at all). Its not true to say that its no extra hassle to do as the car is getting the tyres done anyway as anywhere with decent equipment will have a separate alignment station separate from the tyre lifts or whatever.

fasttalkerchat

I paid £20 for the full front wheel alignment with the laser machine.

I missed the part about the back tyre being worn. I take it all pressures were okay and tyres were never rotated?