Madturtle

I have Toyo Proxes 4 tires on my A3 sLine which have 8/32 tread left on the rears and they have feathered so badly that the cabin noise was excessive(to be kind). The tires are ruined after only a few thousand km. My front tires still have 10/32 left.

I found this thread http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/Web...?displayRecent which indicates that there may be a design problem with the A3 suspension which causes this problem.

Can anyone here shed any light on this issue?

cheeba

Hint: don't take advice from random people on the internet that have zero knowledge of how suspension actually works.

You did have the alignment checked, right? What are your alignment specs?

Madturtle

The car is a certified pre-owned. The dealer is rectifying the problem, for which I am extremely grateful. I assume there was an alignment done before I bought the car. It is the rear tires which are feathering. This is why I was asking about the suspension design as it is usually the fronts which get clobbered by poor alignment.

I am curious to know if others have had a similar problem and if so how or if they rectified it. I also found many posts that the OEM Perreli P6 tires cupped and feathered prematurely and was a known problem. I didn't see any comments confirming that changing tire brand solved the issue. I also read that the A4 had a similar problem and a TSB was put out on how to rectify it.

I agree that a little knowledge can dangerous which is why I'm posting to gain more insight.

cheeba

Get the dealer to give you the complete alignment specs, and post them here. Also, if you're getting any vibrations/wobbling have the wheels balanced. More specific (and clear) information on the tire wear will help me let you know where to start looking.

Alignment is alignment; it's not really possible for the spring rates or damping to affect the tire wear much (maybe a very small amount, and would only be over large bumps). A vehicles alignment is at or near the static settings for the vast majority of the distance travelled, only changing over large bumps/undulations, or when transferring load from side-to-side or fore/aft. A normally-driven street vehicle doesn't change in suspension geometry enough to cause tire wear, so the issue is the static setting to begin with. Pirelli P6 tires are pretty crappy - as are most OEM tires short of an R8 or Porsche - but the higher the UTQG rating, the less they should wear given a poor alignment, so your issue likely does not lie there.

Madturtle

This may help. No shop dust touching alternate blocks of tread on the inside edge.

cheeba

This.

Madturtle

Well I got new tires and had a 4 wheel alignment done today. As mentioned earlier the wheel bearings were checked and found to be fine. The alignment showed that the car was within spec prior to the new alignment, which begs the question; What caused the tires to become so badly feathered that they needed to be replaced?

Here are the alignment numbers:


I was told by the service desk that the A3 suffered from tire wear issues and that I should rotate my tires every 5000 km. I do rotate my tires regularly but that seems excessive.

DAve Unruh

I have an A3 '06 for 2 years now. No tire wear problems. I rotate tires every 4 months. When I got the car the shop put Fasken ZE 912's on it. They are a bit noisy but not bad.I use winter tires & bought 225/45R17Blizzak LM25V. They are OK in the winter. I have no unusual wear problems. The Faskens now have tread wear 7/32 on the fron & 8/32 on the rear & have even wear. I drive the car hard about 1/2 the time. My annual mileage (Kilometerage?) is about 30K. My experience with noise has usally been from worn wheel bearings.