Abnormal tyre wear

[allanb]

On the question whether both tyres on the same axle really need to be of the same make, as the law requires: my car's handbook gives a reason.  It says that tyres from different manufacturers can differ in circumference even if their specification codes are identical.

Assuming this is true, I think it's a plausible reason.

However, if it is valid, it makes a bit of a nonsense of the law's tolerance of a 5mm difference in tread depth, doesn't it?  If my arithmetic is any good, 5mm in tread depth means about 3.14 cm in circumference, which seems quite a lot.

[Bugsy]

[quote user="mitsi"]Is your car RHD? I ask because that can affect your tyres when you consider the camber of the road will be the opposite here to the UK.

[/quote]

That made me smile. Are you really suggesting that the location of the steering wheel can affect tyre wear ?

The Maclaren F1 road car should be OK then as it has its steering wheel in the centre of the car............[:D]

Motorcycle tyres wear differently here too, compared to the UK, but its nothing to do with where the steering is placed, its mainly the fact that roundabouts are taken anti-clockwise instead of clockwise.

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[Chancer]

[quote user="Bugbear"][quote user="mitsi"]Is your car RHD? I ask because that can affect your tyres when you consider the camber of the road will be the opposite here to the UK.
[/quote]

That made me smile. Are you really suggesting that the location of the steering wheel can affect tyre wear ?

The Maclaren F1 road car should be OK then as it has its steering wheel in the centre of the car............[:D]

Motorcycle tyres wear differently here too, compared to the UK, but its nothing to do with where the steering is placed, its mainly the fact that roundabouts are taken anti-clockwise instead of clockwise.
[/quote]

Made me smile as well BB, you forgot to add that roundabouts in France only have the outer lane used which, for a given speed, reduces the tyre wear, but is not good for the nerves [:'(]

[AnOther]

Actually it's not such a silly notion.

RHD means that there is often a weight bias to the NS (driver only) plus, because so many French roads are narrow, you can tend to spend more time with the NS wheels on the rough edge of the road which can accelerate wear.

I have already lost one virtually new tyre to a lump of rock at the road edge when squeezing over to allow room for oncoming traffic [:(]

[Bugsy]

[quote user="ErnieY"]Actually it's not such a silly notion.

RHD means that there is often a weight bias to the NS (driver only)

[/quote]

Never had you down as a fat bloke Ernie..........................[:P]

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[hoverfrog]

[quote user="sid"]

I've noticed that my righthand side tyres (ie nearest the kerb) are wearing very quickly. I took the car to the local garage to ask him to check alignment and bearings etc but he immediately said it was normal here with the state of the secondary roads. He said "Drive in the middle"!! Now, whilst this may explain some of the driving behaviour around here, I'm loathe to drive down the middle of the road.[/quote]

I noticed that all three of my cars tend to pull to the right, so I tried the "driving in the middle of the road" approach. It works!

Whether it's the camber (to be honest I wasn't aware that there was one - the roads round here seem to be a bit haphazard in that respect!) or the rough edge of the roads I don't know, but driving in the middle means all 3 cars go straight.

As far as the weight bias goes, certainly on Nivas RHD means extra weight on the right - steering box, etc, to say nothing of the driver! LHD is so much easier to work on - the space under the bonnet is evenly distributed instead of all the components crammed on the RHS.

[AnOther]

[quote user="Bugbear"]Never had you down as a fat bloke Ernie..........................[:P][/quote]I am obliged to moderate my response BB as 'er indoors frequents the forum too [Www] [:D]

[mitsi]

Actually you missed my point about RHD cars - nothing to do with the steering wheel, what I meant was it would have been set up for the camber of the road for when you drive on the left i.e opposite camber to driving on the right. Most roads have a camber otherwise they would always flood. So on that basis a left hand drive car, or rhd that has been corrected for driving over here could suffer the problem if used in the UK for a lengthy period.

[Bugsy]

[quote user="mitsi"]Actually you missed my point about RHD cars - nothing to do with the steering wheel, what I meant was it would have been set up for the camber of the road for when you drive on the left i.e opposite camber to driving on the right.

[/quote]

Sorry mitsi, and please dont take offence, but that's rubbish.

As an vehicle engineer  in my previous life I can assure you that all wheel alignment on normal road cars is based around the centreline of the vehicle taken from a line, lengthways, through the wheels.

Castor, camber, toe-in, toe-out are always done equal on both sides of the vehicle.

The only exception to this rule are oval-track race-cars where different settings are used to aid stability. (they only go round one way)

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[Chancer]

Seconded.