Anyone else have uneven wear on their LV Focus?

[Yellow_Festiva]

Time to replace the tyres on my Focus. I'm not actually buying new ones, but have a set in the garage that was purchased from another forum member.

My tyres have been chewed up big time on the inside edges and I'm wondering if that is normal for this car, ie the geometry has been set up as such.

The other cars I have owned all wear exactly even across the face of the tread, however on the Focus there seems to be a variance of at least 2-3mm across the thread. Not much in the scheme of things, but it means I need to toss tyres before they are due as the insides are unroathworthy while the centre and outer tread groove still have a few mm of rubber above the wear indicator.

Pedders did an inspection and told me there was no factory adjustment to fix this, and that I would need a kit to the tune of $1700 to get even wear - they also told me the car would drive stright and use less fuel (even though my car already drives straight and uses below factory figures anyway).

I will not be getting the kit... to be honest all this problem means is that I get 10% less life out of a set of rubber, and I would need to keep the car for 1000 years to profit from the kit. Not going to happen!

I will be putting on the new wheels / tyres and getting an alignment done straight away. Will also be keeping a closer eye to the inside of each tyre to see if it starts to get chewed out faster.

Just curious if anyone else has had the same pattern of wear as I have described above?

[DeKa]

Mine has worn perfectly level over nearly 30000km on the current tyres. I've got soft tyres too - Bridgestone Adrenalin.

[Russ]

I still have the original Goodyear Eagles that came as OEM on mine, they have 35,000 k's on them now and are wearing evenly. I would say I still have around 40% tread left now. I will be upgrading soon to 18" XR5 T rims, just have to try and decide what tyres to put on them

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by Russ

I still have the original Goodyear Eagles that came as OEM on mine, they have 35,000 k's on them now and are wearing evenly. I would say I still have around 40% tread left now. I will be upgrading soon to 18" XR5 T rims, just have to try and decide what tyres to put on them

Those Goodyears are a bloody good tyre. I just gave them a rap in the 'Tyres that punch above their weight' thread as mine went to 60k km and are still very safe to drive on, and probably would have gone another 7-12thousand km had they not been chewed up on the inside as described above.

Will ask the alignment guy for a rough idea of how out my geometry is.. may explain what has happened. Pedders were adamant a simple alignment couldn't correct the wear but you need to take that advice with grain of salt.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Time to replace the tyres on my Focus. I'm not actually buying new ones, but have a set in the garage that was purchased from another forum member.

My tyres have been chewed up big time on the inside edges and I'm wondering if that is normal for this car, ie the geometry has been set up as such.

The other cars I have owned all wear exactly even across the face of the tread, however on the Focus there seems to be a variance of at least 2-3mm across the thread. Not much in the scheme of things, but it means I need to toss tyres before they are due as the insides are unroathworthy while the centre and outer tread groove still have a few mm of rubber above the wear indicator.

Pedders did an inspection and told me there was no factory adjustment to fix this, and that I would need a kit to the tune of $1700 to get even wear - they also told me the car would drive stright and use less fuel (even though my car already drives straight and uses below factory figures anyway).

I will not be getting the kit... to be honest all this problem means is that I get 10% less life out of a set of rubber, and I would need to keep the car for 1000 years to profit from the kit. Not going to happen!

I will be putting on the new wheels / tyres and getting an alignment done straight away. Will also be keeping a closer eye to the inside of each tyre to see if it starts to get chewed out faster.

Just curious if anyone else has had the same pattern of wear as I have described above?

I killed the fronts of my OEM tyres in 25,000km, the inside edges were worn down big time compared to the middle/outside, and I make sure I run 38 psi all round in my tyres so it wasn't pressures causing it, and it wasn't hard driving either and I'm mostly cruising down the freeway.

I found those Goodyear NCT5s were crap, dodgy handling, wore out the fronts in 25,000km, the first LV Focus I had, was fitted with 4 out of round tyres and the wheel would shake like anything at 100km/h.

Not only that but they were noisy as.

Then I lowered the car, got a rear camber kit installed and fitted new Toyo TEO PLUS tyres to it, haven't got any wear issues on the front, just that as these tyres age the grip seems to drop off rapidly, its pretty easy to get it to understeer or spin the outside front wheel.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Thanks for that Damo. Must have got a bad batch by the sounds of things. Have been very happy with how mine have performed. Then again, myself and my wife rarely push the car hard, and we are not fussed by noise so they may well underperform compared to other brands but we haven't noticed.

Noted that yours also got chewed up on the inside. hmmmm.

We shall see how we go in a few weeks. Will swap them over and do the rear brakes just prior to the 60k service. The last 3 services I have been called telling me that tyres / brakes are shot. At least they won't need to call me a 4th time.

Don't know what the new tyres are. They are the standard fitment on the LW Focus, 215/55 R16 I think... I know, slightly oversize but not by much.

I'm sure Ford will call me, suggesting I replace 4 brand new tyres with the 'correct' ones.. if they even notice at all.

Will post my findings on the alignment to see if it was a factor.

[Ratmick]

Mine were chewed up on the inside and were picked up at the 30k service as being unroadworthy in around 3 months.

Picked up a self-tapper through the right rear about two months later and by the time I had pulled over the tyre was no more...so replaced all four.

Mick

[Yellow_Festiva]

Seems a few people have experienced the same issue.

[SJG351]

Too much negative camber and some possible toe out, get another opinion, your too far away to be sent to my guy but i will ask if he knows about the adjustment kit?

[SJG351]

My Guy said to post up the spec sheet of the alignment, he thinks it is towing out.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by SJG351

My Guy said to post up the spec sheet of the alignment, he thinks it is towing out.

Thank you for that.

Getting the alignment in a week or 2 and will ask for before and after readings.

Cheers,

Jason

[svo supporter]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Thank you for that.

Getting the alignment in a week or 2 and will ask for before and after readings.

Cheers,

Jason

Good idea...Otherwise it's all a stab in the dark scenario....IMA, it might even be a case of factory specs not being suitable too...

So we'll wait and see what the report shows up.

[jpblue1000]

60,000 km's from a set of tyres, jesus, Id be extatic with that...but then I run 3 degrees negative camber huge caster and big toe out. of course I get 10,000km's sometimes (hard tyres) but sure handles well. worst I got was 2600 km's but that was mostly track stuff and too and from events (rotated after each event too).

chewing out the insides is either camber or toe out. how often do you get wheel alignments and is the car modified (im guessing not)

Justin

[SJG351]

Dont get talked into any adjustment kit until we see the data ok.