Why are my tyres wearing out so soon?
QUESTION
Hi John,
Almost nine months ago, I took delivery of my new Hyundai i30 N Fastback.
This week I took my car in for its 10,000km service and when I got it back, the service report identified that the rear tyres were down to 2mm of tread, while the fronts were still at 6mm. At the time I wasn’t too worried because the service department just brushed it off as new tyres time.
A little bit later that evening, I was thinking about it and it popped in to my head, ‘Hold up, this is a front wheel drive. How have I blown through my rears before my fronts?' Allegedly Hyundai didn’t rotate my wheels and they also identified they were wearing unevenly and mostly inside the rears.
If they had come back and said the fronts were on their way out, I would have said, 'Yeah, sure, a turbocharged 210kW FWD - and I’ve spun the wheels a few times. Makes sense.’ But the fact the fronts still have life in them is very eyebrow raising.
I’ve got the car scheduled in for an aligment and new tyres next week.
Should I be coming down on Hyundai about this? A lot of people on Reddit, where I raised the question first, have pointed out I should be very concerned. Obviously the P-Zeros aren’t exactly the most resilient performance tyres and I do ratbag a bit. But this seems pretty suss.
Thanks for any advice you can swing my way.
Anthony
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ANSWER
Anthony,
If I had a problem, I wouldn’t be going to Reddit looking for a solution. (Democracy is not the best solution on any technical issue…)
Tread depth = lowest point on the tread face. I note your comments about uneven wear.
Therefore, the 2mm determination relates to the lowest point on the rears.
They’re not necessarily wearing faster; they’re wearing unevenly. (That would depend on the tread depth across the face.)
P-zeros are asymmetric. (Check out Fitting Performance Tyres to Road Cars here >>) They’re hard on the outside edges (solid and grippy) and comparatively soft on the insides (water dispersal). The outsides are devoted to stiffness and grip, the middle is for high-speed stability and the insides are mainly there for ejecting water in the rain.
So, it could be an alignment thing at the rear, or an operating pressure thing (too low). If you’re not checking the pressure once a week - probably too low. It could be both pressure + alignment.
In any case, it doesn’t sound all that ’Three Mile Island’ to me.
JC
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