Irregular Tyre Wear / Wheel Bearings

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6cbluegt
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Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 9:06 am
Drives: White Polo BlueGT (6C)
Location: England

Irregular Tyre Wear / Wheel Bearings

Post by 6cbluegt »

Hello everyone, bit of a newbie. Purchased a 2015 Polo Bluegt as my first car at the start of November and have been looking around on the forum ever since, and have finally made an account!

I just wanted to see if anyone else had experienced the same as me with their rear tyres as I haven't seen anything on the forum about it and thought it may be useful to start a topic incase anyone else runs into the same issues!

When I bought it, the car had done 26,500 mile and had what I presumed to be the original dunlop sport maxx tyres fitted to the rears and the garage had fitted some budget tyres to the front (can't wait for them to wear out and need replacing :D :roll: )
When test driving, I had noticed what I thought was a very slight wheel bearing noise and thought nothing of it, thinking it might be related to the cylinder deactivation. Anyway, the noise got increasingly worse as speed increased - especially around 50/55mph (with a slight vibration too) until at around 34/35k, and with the car counting me down to its service, I took it to the local mechanic I know to give it a once over and book the service, asking about a turbo noise (air release noise - no issues) and this suspect wheel bearing noise. I had noticed the rear tyres had a weird dust pattern on them, as in alternating diagonal strips had dust and others none. There were also flatspots on the inner part of the tyre, flat for a couple of inches then loads of tread again then flat again etc... I pointed this out and he immediately said that was causing my "wheel bearing" noise. I believe it's called "sawtooth wear" and even tyre manufacturers don't understand how it happens but it is more common on the non-driven wheels. I had two new tyres fitted (originally I wanted PilotSport4 tyres but with these on back order I went for Pirelli Pzero GT tyres - look amazing) and the noise is gone and we have silence in the cabin and a really smooth ride!

Here is a video showing the irregular tyre wear. Looks more like a 50p than a tyre :D - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1pAefIolro

I will probably make a thread of the car with pictures and existing and pending modifications in the near future!
SRGTD
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Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2015 9:40 pm
Drives: 2020 AW Polo GTI+, Pure White.
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Re: Irregular Tyre Wear / Wheel Bearings

Post by SRGTD »

Welcome to the forum 6cbluegt.

I had this issue on my mk5 Golf a few years ago; the tread blocks on the inside edge of the rear tyres wearing in a stepped, sawtooth pattern, accompanied by a fairly loud droning noise at speeds above 40-ish mph. It started at around 25k miles and it did sound like a wheel bearing issue.

I didn’t change the tyres as I was a couple of months away from part exchanging the car for a mk6 Golf.

http://www.vwgolf.org/saw_tooth_wear-2200.html
6cbluegt
New
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 9:06 am
Drives: White Polo BlueGT (6C)
Location: England

Re: Irregular Tyre Wear / Wheel Bearings

Post by 6cbluegt »

Ah okay!

I said would it be worth rotating the tyres but they were so far gone that it might have made handling worse trusting those tyres with steering, plus I just wanted peace and quiet :D
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