They haven’t said anything yet – just told me it is ready so I am going down to speak directly with them after work.

OP you are a little confused.

Wheel alignment or geometry comprises three things:

Toe (I think you referred to this as alignment)
Caster
Camber

So saying the alignment is out means some or all the above are out.

Alignment can change due to wear on suspension components and hitting potholes etc. Even things moving a tiny fraction can cause tyre wear like your picture – most people only get it setup when they notice wear on tyres but its worth doing every time you get new tyres all round.

It is a “wear and tear” thing, so rightly they refuse warranty. It could have been out when you bought the car, but how is anyone to know you haven’t hit a pothole or bounced up and down kerbs?

When you get new tyres fitted, have them set the alignment. It shouldn’t cost much more than £70, many kwik fit stores have the very good idiot-proof hunter laser system to do this, and you’ll get a print out of before and after to show the setting in spec.

Wherever you take it make sure they check and set caster, camber and toe on the front and rear axles, not just the toe.

how is anyone to know you haven’t hit a pothole or bounced up and down kerbs?

But all four tyres have worn in the same way – I don’t accept I could have done anything to cause that. If I had hit a pothole it could thrown one corner out, but not the whole set.

And the tyres that wore out were the original set from new and the level of wear on the inside edge suggests the camber has been way out for a long time (I would suggest from new).

I do accept that ‘camber’ is part of the wheel alignment though.

As I suggested take it to a tyre specialist (or Audi if price is sensible) in 12 months and ask them to rotate tyres and recheck alignment stuff. Enjoy the car, I miss mine.

Don’t let them wash it! Probably use some gritty sponge or brush and swirl up your paint..

I had a Q7. Front wheels always wore on the inside first. Seemingly a common problem. I used to get a 4 wheel drive wheel alignment whenever I bought new tyres. Seemed to even out the wear. Though I still needed to replace all the tyres every 12/18 months. The alignment was only £45 from Kwik for. If I didn’t get it down the front tyres insides could wear down to illegal within 6-9 months!

Most tyre places will measure camber,castor and toe.
But then tell you they can only adjust the toe on the front.
Find a specialist alignment centre that will adjust it all if needed and ask for before and after printouts.
Kwickfit ats national tyre will only adjust front toe, don’t use them.
Castor and camber is not quick to adjust and the manufacturer often dosent provide adjustment for rear toe,camber.

Modern fwd / awd cars with wide low profile tyres eat front tyres as so much is asked of them.
Full lock and check inner edges once a month..

As for straddling speed bumps being the cause don’t be daft a tyre will rotate once over the speed bump not significant in total mileage.
Less of the load pedal, lower cornering speeds will save your tyres but that’s not a normal driving style for Mr audi It seems.

So I finally collected the car last night and was hoping to report back today with the details of how far out things were – a point to which they admitted last night saying something like ‘ye, the alignment was quite far out’ and accepting that it must have been for quite some time.

However the report sheet I thought they had given me with the details on it wasn’t in fact the figures of the various measurements but a simple safety check list.

From what I saw of the sheet with the measurements on (which was waved about in front of me quite quickly) was showing figures of +1.5, +1.8, +3.1 (the +3.1 was the highest figure I saw). I have no idea what those figures mean!

Anyway, they told me to book it in for another inspection in a few weeks time when the new tyres have got a few miles on them and they can check to see if things seem on track.

And I have a clean car for once.

My boss used to get this on his RS6 and he drives like miss daisy.

Miss Daisy had a chauffeur.

will save your tyres but that’s not a normal driving style for Mr audi

It is for me! 🙂

“From what I saw of the sheet with the measurements on (which was waved about in front of me quite quickly) was showing figures of +1.5, +1.8, +3.1 (the +3.1 was the highest figure I saw). I have no idea what those figures mean!”

Those would be camber figures. + is positive, that is that the top of the wheel is leaning in towards the body of the car. The number is the degrees from dead upright that they’re leaning by.

I don’t know what the tolerances are for your car but you could find out via the V.A.G workshop manual, ELSAWIN.

For fast road use I run my mk3 Golf and Corrado at +1.5 on the front. After fine tuning it myself I have sttled on that setting to give the best cornering grip without wearing the tyres excessively or making the car unstable in a straight line. The rear isn’t adjustable on either of them as they both use a torsion beam axle. Yours is almost certainly a multi link setup out back which would be adjustable for at least toe in.

My Jaguar has a multi link rear end and with two worn bushes and a worn track rod end the geometry is constantly changing, not good. It wobbles, especially over 100.. I need to rebuild it asap.

Have a read of the supension pages on Carbibles.com for a good, in depth explanation of car suspension sytems.

That wear you have is quite extreme, almost looks like they’ve been rubbing though I doubt it as all four are the same. Are the wheels the standard ones or were they an optional extra?

That wear you have is quite extreme, almost looks like they’ve been rubbing though I doubt it as all four are the same. Are the wheels the standard ones or were they an optional extra?

Yes I agree it does seem extreme (and I suspect the dealer felt the same as they have done the work for free). The wheels are Audi original equipment, however the car is a ‘Black Edition S-Line’ which gets slightly larger rims (19.5” as opposed to 18” on the standard S-Line) but it came from the factory like as a standard ‘out of the box’ variant of the car.

I thought they would be standard for the model. I just asked because some dealers have been known to swap bits about to make a particular car sell better without making sure they are actually suitable. Wheels with the wrong offset for example can cause problems with suspension, bearings and even trye rub if it’s way out.

I’ve seen some pretty severe inside-edge tyre wear before. However that concave wear down to the canvas right on the shoulder but with some tread left right beside it is new to me. A friend of mine was a tyre fitter for years and a fellow car nut, I’ll ask him what he thinks.

If the car were mine I would get a tread depth gauge (a couple of quid) and check the inside, outside and centre every week and write it down so you can keep track of any uneven wear. It sounds boring and is a hassle but it does mean you’re informed if you end up in the same situation again.

Interesting to see above comment about larger rins / lower profile tyres being mkre sensitive, I suspected this might be the case.

lazlowoodbine – Member

For fast road use I run my mk3 Golf and Corrado at +1.5 on the front. After fine tuning it myself I have sttled on that setting to give the best cornering grip without wearing the tyres excessively or making the car unstable in a straight line

My Jaguar has a multi link rear end ……. It wobbles, especially over 100

I presume you live in a country with no speed limits, or have a private racetrack ?…. 🙂

A friend of mine was a tyre fitter for years and a fellow car nut, I’ll ask him what he thinks.

I’d be interested in hearing as it really surprised me to see the wear when I took the wheel off (I had an unrelated puncture which then ripped the tyre to shreds so I asked the tyre fitters to investigate things). Thankfully that happened otherwise I would have tried to eek out more milage on them (they hadn’t worn right down to the wear indicator on the tyres) and my wife is taking our two little girls on a long motorway journey to see friends next Monday – and a high speed blow out could easily have happened 😯

And yes I will certainly be keeping a much closer eye on the tyre wear from now on.

For fast road use I run my mk3 Golf and Corrado at +1.5 on the front.

Would I be correct in assuming on a standard unmodified car the measurements should have read 0 then (ie, should never have been anywhere near +1.5)?

I presume you live in a country with no speed limits, or have a private racetrack ?

Erm.. Er… I meant kph, not mph..

and a high speed blow out could easily have happened

It can and does happen, although if it’s any comfort these modern low profile, reinforced sidewall tyres usually let you know well before it all goes too wrong. A total failure which lets all the air out before you can stop is actually pretty unlikely.

You may also find that they’re run-flats. Are they really heavy, hugely expensive and give the ride quality of a knackered old Transit? If so then they probably are.

EDIT:

I have actually cocked up on the camber. NEGATIVE camber is when the wheels lean in at the top, POSITIVE is when they lean out. No modern car that I know of uses positive camber as it is counter productive. I got negative and camber the wrong way round, I blame the painkillers I’m on at the moment.. I most definitely run negative camber on my cars.

The idea of camber is that as a car leans outwards through a corner (and of course the wheel leans with it) that the wheels stays as upright as possible so that the whole of the tyre is in contact with the road. If the wheel is already leaning in when the car’s upright then with a bit of experimentation it can be set up to be upright when cornering. Of course it means the the inside whell while cornering is now leaning alot more but as it is not really providing any meaningful grip it’s a worthwhile compromise.

RE: The “+” infront of the figure you saw: It doesn’t necesarrily mean that the figures you saw meant that they did find positive camber and anyway that would not be compatible with the uneven tyre wear you have.

It could well be that that those figures were under a heading of negative camber, but seeing as they didn’t let you examine them properly it’s hard to say.

I don’t know what figures your particular car should run but I’d put money on it being negative to some degree rather than 0, or dead upright.

Oh I’ve really confused things now, sorry.

😀

I will just have to monitor over the next few weeks and see how the new tyres fare. Cheers.

OP – would you have same car again ? Wondering about a 2.0 diesel Quattro avant in a few months…

Iainc – yes I think I would – it’s a nice drive and surprisingly smooth despite the huge rims and low profile tyres (certainly more forgiving than the A5 I had as a courtesy car which felt ‘bangy’ on uneven roads in the same way my old style A6 did).

I wouldn’t get another auto though – the lag in taking up drive at junctions drives me mad at times.

If you got that car a few years ago and it’s a 2 litre then it’s probably a multitronic CVT gearbox? Which I think Audi have stopped using now.

EDIT – You’ve got 4wd so it won’t be that box.

I really should read the whole thread first 🙂

😉

BTW – the newer box in the A5 I had as a courtesy car was quicker – I asked at the garage and apparently they have made some minor updates to make it engage more quickly.

OK. Read the OP, and haven’t really read the rest, so apologies if this has already been sorted.

Thats really poor and uneven wear, which cannot have been caused by incorrect pressures. Having spend a more than a decade in the fleet industry I have seen this happen many many times. Dealers will ALWAYS try to wriggle out of this, but will always either give in eventually or when a complaint goes to the manufacturer.

Correct observation by one that tyres are not covered by warranty, kinda true, but not strictly true. They are: firstly they if if they were the OE tyres and were manufactured incorrectly, and secondly (in your case) they are in effect covered by the warranty because a fault with the car has caused them to wear incorrectly causing you a consequential loss.

Mercedes, VW, Mercedes, BMW, Renault, Land Rover, Mini, Saab , etc etc- I have either had them done on warranty on my own car then re-aligned by the dealer for organised it a customer (I have lost count), give them hell and don’t budge. Its not your fault, so its theirs, simple as that. If you need any more info/guidance please feel free to email. You may have to excavate higher int he dealer group or to the manufacturer. Or sue as a last resort.

Incidentally that can be caused by too much negative camber, but could just as easily be caster, toe or all.

Cheers Moe – The garage checked and fixed the geometry without charge (and washed n vacced too) and asked me to bring it back in in a few weeks to check how it is going with the new tyres.

I wasn’t bothered about getting the tyres paid for as they had 25k on them anyway and were due to be replaced.