What would cause this type of tyre wear?

Associate
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The images below are pretty shocking considering I wasn't aware of the wear on the inside edge. I do check my tyres regularly for thread depth and pressure and knew they needed replacing as they were about 2.7mm the last time I checked less than a month ago.

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The tyres are Yokohama 275/30/R20 and the two images are of the same tyre fitted on the outside rear of the car. It's odd that the wear isn't uniform around the entire circumference of the tyre. The neighbouring nearside rear showed absolutely no sign of the same wear.

I suspect it's a tyre defect as from the day I had them fitted I had a noticeable vibration for which I took the car back 3 times to have the wheels and alignment checked. They fobbed me off with some excuse or other.

Check your tyres folk.
 
Man of Honour
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One of the reasons I tend to seriously start thinking of replacing at 3mm as sometimes it is hard to detect issues like this unless you can get the vehicle up on a lift.

My dad had similar on the inside rear tyres of his latest VW Touran, I can't remember the exact details as there was more than one issue causing it (something was rubbing as well but I can't remember what), but according to the mechanic a lot of more recent VAG and BMW cars they've cheaped out on the stock control arm bushes on the independent rear suspension or something like that causing a lot of wear on the stock setup on the inside edge of the tyres. (This is me trying to remember the conversation with my dad so might have got something backwards).
 
Soldato
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I see this all the time when carrying out MOT's/vehicle inspections, and it's predominately on 18"+ wheels with 35 or lower profile tyres, and on cars with lowered suspension.
Merc and BMW (rear wheel drive) run a lot of negative camber on the rear wheels, and when the bushings wear it exacerbates the problem greatly.
Next time you're driving behind one of the said models, have a look, it's easy to see the neg camber.
 
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Soldato
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That isn't a camber issue, that's a toe issue.

You'd have to be running about -50 degrees camber to get that sort of wear profile.

Everyone bangs on about camber, but the tolerances are so much tighter with toe and this sort of issue is almost always due to the toe being out.

For example if your wheel is out by 30 minutes on the camber - you probably won't really see much wear difference at all, until the tyre is almost at the end of its life.

If your wheel is out by 30 minutes on the toe, you'd be lucky to make it home!

Get a Hunter alignment check (some places offer a check FOC)
 
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Thanks for the comments and ideas. The car is booked in for an alignment check next week, earliest I could get. I'm definitely not going to the place where I got the tyres and alignment checked originally which was way back in December '19, probably more than 25k miles ago. I think they sold me a defective tyre or bodged the alignment, multiple times due to the vibration I mentioned earlier.
 

mjt

mjt

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25000 on a set of tyres!!!
The rear PSS on my A6 were almost at 50,000 miles before I binned them with over 4mm of tread because I refurbished my wheels and the tyres had been flatspotted.

@Mysterae_ my dad has something similar on his 5GT but it was caught before it got that bad. Perhaps something common with big BMWs? The inside is very hard to see unless you’re up on a ramp..
 
Soldato
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If that was a bodged alignment due to poor workmanship from day one, i'm not sure it's likely you'd have seen 25k out of those tyres before running into problems
 
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Wear at edge of tire is underinflation. Presumably you check pressure with a checker, rather than TPMS?

I'd still be looking for something it's rubbed against on the car though.
 
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@Mysterae_ my dad has something similar on his 5GT but it was caught before it got that bad. Perhaps something common with big BMWs? The inside is very hard to see unless you’re up on a ramp..

Quite possibly a BMW thing, but it's the first time I've seen this type of wear one just one tyre (the NSR was evenly worn) and I've had the car over 7 years.

Crikey I got 6000 on an Evo VIII !!!
21000 on my Q5 and about to get my second replacement set. I think I probably enjoy my driving a bit :D:cry:

A big difference between a Evo VIII and a 640D :D. It's my main commuting car so doesn't get ragged too much. Continue to enjoy your car!

Wear at edge of tire is underinflation. Presumably you check pressure with a checker, rather than TPMS?I'd still be looking for something it's rubbed against on the car though.

I regularly check my tyre pressures, either with a 12V compressor or with a PCL tyre inflator connected to my air compressor. All tyres are done at the same time, only one tyre exhibits this wear so I'm ruling out incorrect inflation (the tyres never leaked air either). As for something rubbing against the tyre, I've not checked for that but will tomorrow when it's light.

It'd be scary knowing how long you'd been driving around like that. That's an imminent blowout waiting to happen.

Scary indeed. No excuse either, get on the ground and check your tyres!
 
Soldato
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damage would be visible when checked a month ago, just looking from back of car ... so it's not a tyre/alignment defect from 2019.;

I'd even go for it being sliced by a pothole edge the car cut into, unless it was a bend would probably have impacted front tyre too ?
(these auto-braking systems don't see pot-holes, number of a10 roundabouts have radial potholes, you have to remember to straddle them in the car)
 
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25000 on a set of tyres!!!

Depending on which tyres I am running, i am disappointed if I dont get 25,000 miles from a tyre.

Most I ever had was 60,000 from some AT grabbers which are hard and massive tread on an old Fourtrak. Only changed them because they were over 10 years old, they still had plenty of tread left/
 
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