2007 Seat Ibiza tyre wear

[HustleRussell]

I put a new pair of tyres on the front (Rainsport 3 205/45r16) and checked the geo a year ago. The driver has maintained the tyre pressures at the book fully laden value i.e. overinflated if anything. 6000 miles later the tyres are down to ~3mm on both outside edges with 5mm+ in the middle.

Console bushes appear to have been replaced with polybushes at some point.

Where should I be looking?

[Classy6]

Tyre pressures.

Geometry tends to affect one particular area of the tyre noticeably more than another, doesn't sound as though that's the case.

[GreenV8S]

Has the driver been ragging the car through corners on a regular basis? A softly set up car driven hard will have a lot of body roll in corners and tend to wear the edges of the tyres.

[HustleRussell]

It's not tyre pressures (See original post).

I don't think he's hooning about either

I needed to get the car out fast and was expecting to quickly diagnose console bushes but the fact that I saw polybushes under there threw me. I did not check any ball joints so that's the next step I suppose.

[GreenV8S]

Presumably the poly bushes are non-standard. If they were the wrong rating and affected the geometry under power or braking that might cause unusual wear without showing up in a static geometry check.

[xjay1337]

I would get an alignment. I see many car owners saying "well I got an alignment..." but when you put it on a machine it's miles out.

Check the bushes etc, sure. But it's usually alignment or pressures.
Around 32psi and a proper alignment should be fine. easy to find any excess play with a pry bar.

That being said Rainsport 3 may appear to be a great choice for the money but they wear VERY fast compared to other tyres ... bit of a false economy.

[HustleRussell]

I aligned it myself, for me the fact that there is wear on both outer shoulders is a major curve ball if I am correctly lead to believe that these tyres have not been run at lower than ideal pressures.

[GreenV8S]

Are the tyres the right width for the rim? You can get odd wear patterns if the tyre is stretched onto a rim that is too wide or too narrow - effectively, the tread twists under side loads so that it is no longer parallel to the axle.

[HustleRussell]

205/45 on a 6.5J rim as per factory

[TooMany2cvs]

GreenV8S said:

Has the driver been ragging the car through corners on a regular basis? A softly set up car driven hard will have a lot of body roll in corners and tend to wear the edges of the tyres.

But the outside edges harder than the inside edges, even if you hammer it equally into LH and RH bends - the inside edge of the inside tyre is less heavily loaded than the outside edge of the outside tyre.

Just because it's the book pressure doesn't necessarily mean it's the ideal pressure for even wear. And that's assuming the gauge they've been checking with is right...