I am in correspondence with Alfa Romeo (GB) over what I perceive as being excessive wear on my car.
The inside edge/shoulder of the front tyres wears considerably faster that the tread covering the rest of the tyre.
Alfa have intimated that it is driver habits rather than the car or the tyres. I, of course disagree. The 166 I drive is the V6 2.5 model. I previously drove a Mazda 626 2.5 V6 and achieved on average 22k miles per set of tyres. Currently achieving 12k miles on the Alfa and I am not alone yet ALfa continue to "refute my allegations".
I know that HJ states that this model is renowned for excessive tyre wear and indeed printed a letter in the Telegraph some weeks back (copy has been lost unfortunately).
Has anyone else experienced this problem and taken issue with Alfa?
The local dealership recently checked the tracking but the variance allowed by Alfa is so great that it is almost meaningless. The guy at the garage did say that the tyre wear is as a result of motorway driving - apparently the downward pressure on the car is such that the tyres wear excessively. Not sure how true this is but I do do a fair bit of m'way driving in my annual mileage of 30k +.
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Powerful fwd cars will rip through front tyres, mine go in about 12,000 if I'm lucky- but this inside edge wear does sound like alignment.
I doubt you'll get much out of Alfa. You could take it to a specialist alignment place (not a fast fit centre) for a report and present them with that, but if the car handles well, I would just buy a pair of tyres and let it go.
Try a different brand maybe....
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I have owned several Alfa's mainly 155's. They suffer from this problem as well.
Whats the age and milelage of your 166 ?
Fortunately i found a excellent website all about the 155 www.alfa155.com which has a excellent forum section ( just like HJ's).It soon became clear everybody else with a 155 had excessive tyre wear problems.
The solution for this model is to replace the top strut bush and front wishbones complete with bushes. (approx £ 60 per side for parts).
A approach has been made to powerflex who specialise in aftermarket polyurethane bushes which last much longer than standard the ones.This will mean replacing just the bushes - not the whole wishbone arm.
The symptoms you describe are identical to the 155's. I was replacing front tyres every 12K and so was the previous owner judging by the number of tyre receipts !. The bushes seem to wear at about 30k or 2 years.
It will be difficult to tell if the bushes are worn so it maybe wise to have a independent inspection done.
Hope you solve this problem .
Steve G
p.s Whats youre opinion of the 166 ? (apart from the tyre wear) - i might buy one soon ,great value.
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Another reader came up with his solution to Alfa 156/166 front tyre wear which was to align the two front wheels exactly parallel: no toe-in and no toe-out. He claimed 40,000 miles from the fronts of his 2.5 V6, which is unbelievable. But I guess the steering feel depends on a bit of toe out, so can't say what this reader's 156 is like to drive, or even if any of what he wrote is true.
HJ
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