tracking and tyre wear

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Thu 2 Jun 2005 18:10
tracking and tyre wear - dylan
While getting rear tyres fitted at a national tyre chain, they checked the tracking, and said it 'way out'. I believe the guy said 4.5 degrees, and indicated that the front wheels were pointing outwards, roughly equally on each side.

I said that was odd, as I'd recently had front tyres replaced after 42000 miles, and they showed no signs of uneven wear. The guy said something like 'oh, tracking problems don't necessarily show up on the tyres'. In general, the guy seemed rather non-credible - he said things like 'dunlop and firestore tyres are rubbish, pirellis are great' (guess which brand they sell), and also said that the first set of tyres on a car always last much longer than subsequent sets, which sounded rather dubious. So I'm relunctant to take anything he said about the tracking at face value.

Is 4.5 degrees 'way out'? If so, could the tracking be so far out and not show any visible effect on the tyres? Does tracking cause any problems other than tyre wear?
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Thu 2 Jun 2005 18:46
tracking and tyre wear - Doc
From the "Tyre Bible":


Toe in & out
'Toe' is the term given to the left-right alignment of the front wheels relative to each other. Toe-in is where the front edge of the wheels are closer together than the rear, and toe-out is the opposite. Toe-in counteracts the tendency for the wheels to toe-out under power, like hard acceleration or at motorway speeds (where toe-in disappears). Toe-out counteracts the tendency for the front wheels to toe-in when turning at motorway speeds. It's all a bit bizarre and contradictory, but it does make a difference. A typical symptom of too much toe-in will be excessive wear and feathering on the outer edges of the tyre tread section. Similarly, too much toe-out will cause the same feathering wear patterns on the inner edges of the tread pattern.

4.5 degrees is excessive and I doubt that this figure is correct given that you have not experienced uneven wear.

Most cars setting should be less than 1 degree.

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