check my tyres for me

[J B L]

Right, so lets see if PH has the same opinion as me.

These are the front tyres of my company car. The lease company's engineer, who sits in an office, says that there's no problem. Lease company based on that says that I can't change my tyres and they won't pay for the tracking/balancing to be checked.

Pay particular attention at the smaller grooves along the belt of the tyre that's suppose to be in contact with the road.

Left (good, no problem)






Right (not so sharp...and that was taken 1500miles ago)




Car pulls to the left. Has been doing so for >5k miles.

I have a bit of an OCD for tyre pressure and check on a weekly basis with the same gauge that I use on my Yamaha's tyres. If the pressure is out by 2psi I adjust it.

Just went into a Kwik Fit. They acknowledge the fact that one tyre is wearing much quicker than the other but they can't do anything as the lease company won't allow the work to be carried out on tyres which have more than 1.6mm thread left.

In your opinion: what would make this tyre wear that quickly?

Am I being paranoid and that left pull is a figment of my imagination.? As far as I know I have always replaced both front tyres at the same time since the wear was pretty equal.

Kwick Fit technician tried to make me believe that it's due to regularly using roundabouts... I left at that point, and stopped arguing. It's now in the hands of our fleet manager.

[Bill]

It all points to the tracking being out IMO. Either that or you drive roundabouts with the inside wheel spinning away.

[BeeRoad]

Looks like its wearing a little more on the inside than the outside. Take it to a tyre place where they check the tracking but don't charge if no adjustment is necessary. Then take the printout to your fleet bloke.

[maccas99]

Just get them down to 1.6 mm quicker, you know how....

[Percy Flage]

Not a GE fleet car is it?

I had exactly the same issue, Kwik Fit (who were very good, to be fair) acknowledged that the way the tyres were wearing was indicative of a tracking problem but no, GE would not authorise the work.

So I went through a set of fronts in just over 7,000 miles. Approx 10,000 miles less than the previous set.

Their money I suppose.

[HellDiver]

It's a Continental. They wear like fury.

Front tyres rarely wear evenly due to road camber and going round roundabouts.

All looks fine to me.

[JulianHJ]

Do leasing firms tend to only change tyres once they hit 1.6mm, or will they pay for them to be changed at 2.0mm if the driver requests it? I'd never let my tyres go below 2.0mm.

[HellDiver]

JulianHJ said:

Do leasing firms tend to only change tyres once they hit 1.6mm,

In my experience, 1.0mm if they can at all get away with it.

[J B L]

Thanks for the replies so far and the recommandations.

HellDriver: how do you explain the pulling to the left? could it explain some extra wear on the right?

Julian: Previous company would allow to change the tyres before 1.6. The new one would not let you apparently. They expect you to run your tyres all the way. Depends of the lease company.

I don't mind running my tyres to 1.6mm but it's the uneven wear and pulling that's bothering me.

The company is not GE. It's one of the big ones though.

[Bill]

J B L said:

how do you explain the pulling to the left?

Tracking. You could swap the wheels over and see if that helps at all. At least the wear will become more even.

[HellDiver]

J B L said:

HellDriver: how do you explain the pulling to the left? could it explain some extra wear on the right?

Binding brake?

I'd expect any car used on UK roads to have a more worn right hand side front tyre. Motorway slip roads, and exitting roundabouts, as well as turning left off roads in to juctions wear that tyre more than the left in my experience (that's 60-65k a year for 10 years and 30k a year since).