I have a 2010 Smax ecoboost and it is wearing through its front tyres at quite a rate and I dont know why??

The car handles really well and it doesnt pull left or right to suggest the tracking is out ?

I have no knocks or rattles coming from the suspension and also no suspension bush wear was picked up on the mot.

Both front tyres are cheapo makes (Sunitrac) and they are wearing on the outside edges a lot more than the rest of the tread.

The only thing i have is that at slow speed turning round car parks etc it feels as the the front wheels are being pushed slightly past where the want to go and feel like they are scrubbing?

I assume this has happened in the last 3 weeks?

As….

The tyres are all in good condition with lots of life left.

– http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ot-ford-smax-2010

Put some air in them.

Cheap tyres and power steering are not a great combination, I don’t expect. Spinning the steering wheel with gay abandon whilst not actually moving will destroy tyres in quicksticks.

cambers out?

sounds like too much toe in or something. I had similar on a pug 205, a steering track rod end had been replaced and hadn’t been adjusted properly again. Went through a tyre in about 500 miles.

When you say out side edge, do you mean both edges of each tyre or just the outer edges?
If both edges then it could be tyre pressure related, other than that if might just be the fact that you are running cheaper tyres.

Get your alignment checked. My SMax got through its first set of front tyres in about 15k miles. I checked the alignment, it was out and have been getting about 25k miles out of front tyres since. I’m from the school of only buying decent branded tyres too. They ride much nicer and you don’t get that scrubbing/scrabbling feeling you get from cheaper tyres. I’ve just changed a set of cheapo tyres on my wife’s Fiat 500 that were almost new because I hated the way they drove, going to top branded tyres has improved the ride and handling to no end.

Cheers for the replies.

It is just the outside edges of both front tyres that are wearing different to the rest of the tyre.

Jamie there is still a lot of tread o the tyre but the outer edges are lower than the rest of the tyre if that makes sense.

being a ford – wishbones are probably bent

Trail rat ????

It drives and handles fine ? no pulling at all either way

“It drives and handles fine ? no pulling at all either way”

so ?

I drove from fort william to arbroath with an escort once that didnt pull in either direction and drove fine…. the front wheels were toed in 10 degrees when i got home….. thatll be the big bang when we went over the speed bump 5 up with 5 bikes on the roof/rear rack.

realistically there are a number of things it could be , id be starting with going to a garage and getting the tracking and suspension on the front end checked out(and i mean an actual garage not a kwikfit)

If outside edges of tyres are wearing on both edges equally then its your tyre pressure being too low – you’re getting a bowing of the central band of the tyre with less pressure being exerted there. So put a few more PSI in.

Alignment issues tend to manifest in uneven wear across the width of the tyre.

I presume the smax has runflats? I understand runflats always wear at the sides first because of the construction of the tyre.

This explains the pattern of wear, the rate could be down to being cheapo tyres

“Alignment issues tend to manifest in uneven wear across the width of the tyre.”

unless its a camber issue…..- mk4 golf wears tires on the inside edge realy bad if the cambers set up to allow it to corner nicely….

I’m going to go with too much toe-in. That said it’s a fairly common wear pattern on largish front drive cars as the stock geometry is often set for straight line running and traction as they aren’t expecting enthusiastic cornering. If you live somewhere with lots of roundabouts you can easily wear the outside edges first.

hooli… no run flats.

This is the left (passenger) side……..

the other side isnt as bad as that.

Id say that your suspension geometry or tracking is out (or both). Or somebody is ragging the crap out of it round the bends…..

Under inflation would cause BOTH inner AND outer edges to wear unevenly, Over inflation would result in the middle section of the ryre wearing prematurely whilst the edges were fine.

Wheel alignment or you’ve been tagging the car fast around corners.

Craigxxl its a ford mpv… it doesnt do ragging !

Edit… In the first picture you can see the first thin groove that goes all the way round the tyre the tread looks raggy there too !

I thought the wrong pressure had one of two possible results (simplified):

a) overinflation – more wear in the middle of the tyre than at the edges
b) underinflation – more wear at both edges than in the middle

<edit> bigyinn beat me to it </edit>

more wear at the outside of both front tyres suggests suspension alignment problems to me*

* I watch Wheeler Dealers so I know everything that Edd knows 😉

It looks likes wheel alignment with inner tread showing some feathering.

Have a look here

Mine looked like that. (S Max Titanium)

Replaced with quality tyres think I had XL versions, and had the alignment done.

Car is noticeably quieter, handles better, stops better etc. etc.

Don’t skimp on tyres and alignment.

Alignment. they are toed in which will improve cornering response but reduce stability. Tracking isn’t nessecarily wrong or right. It can be a preference thing. Garage have fiddled it to the wrong position (not neutral)?

Thanks for the replies.

These are Xl tyres so are correct for the car.

I didnt put them on they came on the car.

They have done about 7k miles max

The car handles really well and it doesnt pull left or right to suggest the tracking is out ?

don’t read anything into that – just had my tracking done yesterday after very quickly horsing through two tyres with the same wear pattern as you. Car drove straight and handled fine. Tracking wasn’t just out, it was pretty much as far out as it can get, in that the little lasers were missing the scale completely, its just that both wheels were wrong in fairly equal measures.

Fixed now and the car doesn’t handle or drive noticably differently other than seeming to have a bigger turning circle now!

So, get your tracking checked!

I’ve said it many times before, tracking is a waste of money and just a revenue earner for garages.

Get four wheel alignment done, it costs a few quid more but measures a minimum of twelve angles instead of just one.

alignmycar.co.uk

Get your alignment checked. Looks like too much toe in (both sides) doje jow and you wont be forking out for new fronts unnecessarily. Had the same on my x type though I ran them ragged as they were god awfull bridgestone run flat’s then got new front rubber and an anlignment check.

To be honest I want to put a new set of tyres on the front as the Chinese ditch finders are crap in the wet!