After 12,000 ish miles my front tyres are looking a bit long in the tooth and short in the tread; however while rotating them to the back I found the inside shoulder of the both wheels are pretty much completely bald.

What causes excessive wear on the inside shoulder of both wheels? Is it castor? Is it camber? Is it tracking?

My console bushes were changed in May; with these tyres going on in at the end of July; is that likely to have summin to do with it?

Also the rear tyres are (from what i can tell from google) "feathering".

The fronts of each tread block are wearing faster than the rear (or vice versa) and the blocks now look like a circular sawblade and make a horrible wheel bearing-esque drone

Any idea how much full 4 wheels alignment check and adjust is? and as the front wheels are actually adjustable in all directions is anyone likely to want to fiddle with the subframe to straighten things up if that proves to be the problem?! :S

Very good post here matey:

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/112607-wheel-alignment-the-big-con/

May help you a bit Alignment is normally between £25-50, but be careful where you go! Is a link in that post to places with better machines

Excess wear on both inside shoulders could be excess camber. You haven't got an undocumented lowering in there?

Feathering on the rears is usually associated with lots of hard braking.

Oh.

My.

God.

9 pages of that thread and I am now more confused than i even wanted to be about suspension and even less convinced the problem will be properly diagnosed and sorted out

I assumed the wear was due to the tops of the wheels leaning towards each other (if looked at from the front/back) putting more pressure on the inside edge and wearing it faster. Making it a camber problem and putting me on the same page as Ken; which seems to be a good thing!

The car has no lowering involved (or if it does given the ride height its a bloody poor job! )

Is camber something that can be adjusted easily?

Is it likely it went out of sync when the bushes were changed?

To be honest both my front tyre wear in the outside edge. I have had the tracking, caster and camber checked and they say its all fine !!!

Lets face it Pastykid, Track days do put more strain on yer tyres and suspension, so more expense mate all round. I've had to bite the bullet and have my alignment done and 4 tyres last year. The alignment should cost £40 - £60.

Thanks Bernie but the tyres were only put on for the drive home after my first track and removed before any track participation on the second day - as the set of completely bald tyres in my shed will to tetstify to!

It's clear something isn;t right so will have to bite the bullet.

I guess my main concern is finding someone doesn't go - "yes that's the problem and that'll be £60 however I'm not tinkering with your subframe to sort it out - live with it"

Even on standard suspension, the in-board shoulders of my tyres would wear fastest - I just put a few extra PSI in, which seemed to help...

question for the OP, what make of tyres are you using ?

I think that when I had that problem (very badly), it appreared after a good proper indie replaced my TCA rear bushes - in less than one year and maybe 7.5K miles, it caused a new pair of Pilot Exaltos to be wiped out - done - now illegal! I did get charged for a complete realignent after that work and yes it was what I would call a four wheel alignment. Up shot of that incident was that I grabbed my wife's failed car from dealer, got two new tyres at Costco, took it back and they did another four wheel alignment - finding that the error was more caster than camber, and 16 months on, when I put on the new steels with snow tyres, there was no evidance of further severe inner tyre wear on the front pair (used to be the back pair) - so that was good. Just be warned that most "two wheel alignment" places are actually only toeing adjusters and I think that your car needs a bit more done to it than that - whatever name you want to call it - and you can call it whatever you like if you are needing it done and are paying for it, just get the front wheels sorted wrt the chassis AND the rear wheels.

question for the OP, what make of tyres are you using ?

Tyres are Kuhmo Ecsta KU31's.

I had the same feathering on the rear tyres when i ran the same tyres in the same size on a (pretty much idenictal to Fabia) Ibiza PD130 so not too worried about that.

I know a stint on the front with wear then down even The fronts are more of a concern.

I have my VW mechanic counsin costing up full aligment at the dealer with "family rates" and i know he'll be prepared to adjust whatever needs adjusting to sort it out

Are your console bushes ok? Normally when they are getting soft it takes the inner edges off.

Regards Chris

Are your console bushes ok? Normally when they are getting soft it takes the inner edges off.

Regards Chris

changed from completely worn, cracked and split standard items to the solid Cupra ones in March last year so i bloody hope it's not them again!

well Saturday morning was spent at my local tyre fitters having the front tyres replaced as as though "Wow look at the sate of those! Your tracking is well out" was the response to the front tyres coming off

The guy has done a sterling job for me in the past with tyre issues/prices so was happy for him to sort the tracking out too.

Once the lasers were all attached on a 1-12 scale drivers side front was reading 4 and the passenger side reading 9.5! as the fitter said "No wonder your tyres are wearing funny they're pointing in different directions! Are you sure you haven't hit anything?"

Quick adjustments and now both are pointing the same way sp hopefully my wear issues will disappear!!

Or maybe in another 10,000 miles i'll have yet another differnt wear problem!

And you weren't driving along straight with left lock on!?

no if anything just a little bit of right to cancel out a pull to the left......

i'm as shocked as anyone that is was that bad!