My car, a volvo v40 sport, has vague, twitchy steering and tends to tramline. I had noticed that my front tyres were wearing slightly on the outsides, so i swapped them with my rear tyres. Upon removing the rear wheels, i noticed the inner edge had worn significantly. Ive been to a volvo independent specialist who have checked the suspension for play, and had a four wheel alignment at ats ( who noted the ‘wandering’ steering). So, my steering is still the same. I’ve now swapped the wheels back to their original positions, but it is still the same. I’ve read online that tyres can make a huge difference, however, i dont want to get new tyres if that isnt the answer. Any ideas? The car feels like its steering on ice!

Mods, please move to chat forum

To be honest the safest & cheapest thing to do would be to replace the tyres & re-check the geo at somewhere other then the dealer who checked it the first time, the difference between alignment equipment can be huge, so make sure it’s been callibrated recently.

Why isit the tyres fault? The issue would just end up wearing 4more tyres. I’d go with incorrect tracking too if theres suspension play etc

I had a similar problem once on my Alfa Spiders New bushes and properly set up wheel alignment transformed it.

This is why i’m out of ideas. Ive had the suspension/bushes etc checked at a volvo specialist today, and then straight after had the alignment. So unless the volvo specialist has missed something, the suspension is not worn. Im guessing the ATS alignment machine is calibrated properly.

Do i go back to the volvo specialist and tell them i think theyve missed something

I’m querying the tyres, as volvos with 17″ alloys and certain tyres can have the symptoms ive described. If my tyres are worn due to incorrect alignment, will they now have an incorrect profile for the corrected alignment?

You can’t properly do a geo on a car with worn tyres as they will skew the results, also a lot of tyres react badly when they are worn, I would replace any tyre below 4mm if you had the symptoms you suggest.
HTH.

Hi teenrat, I’m no mechanic, but I do ‘wrench a lot (never taken my car to the shop). I would say to have the bearings on your wheels checked out, but before you do, make sure to take note of anything that you notice that’s “off” when you drive; grinding when turning a particular direction, chattering when braking, ect… Be as descriptive as possible, it’ll go a long way in helping the tech figure out whats wrong as well as save you the money in unnecessary misdiagnosis.

oh and no, it’s not the tires. Thats a symptom of a bigger problem.

Thanks for the replies. There is no knocking, grinding, the car doesn’t pull one way or another and doesnt pull under braking. The car was fine, and then it wasn’t, with no real degradation period

Had similar on an s40. Front wheels with uneven wear. Turned out to be from one of the front alloys haven taken a bad knock and being slightly misshaped. New wheel sorted it, but wasn’t cheap