Audi B8 S4 tyre wear - inside edge

Started by gondwana, October 18, 2019, 07:32:19 AM

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gondwana

Hello all

I see a few people have in the past commented about inside edge tyre wear on the quattro cars. I have a 2011 S4 sedan and it certainly wears a thin (a cm only) on the extreme inside edge. Hard to understand how this is a contact area to get to the most wear. The car is not driven hard in corners and the tyres are rotated every 10K. I'd say that it is the rear suspension that is doing this more than the front. The previous set of tyres on the car when I bought it three years ago looked OK, but had the same extreme inside edge wear that was hard to spot without taking the tyre off.

The car is serviced by an Audi dealer and they do the alignment every service, so I guess there is nothing wrong in the settings, and maybe this is just a 'feature' of this quattro design? The car was optioned with 19' wheels when new so the tyres are 255/35/19, and I've run the pressures on the door plate - 36/33 ... and a few more pounds when on trips with more people or load. Running higher pressures just tends to make the car too harsh with general road conditions.

I can't complain about the overall wear of the tyres though - Goodyear F1 Asymmetric 3's - as they are up to 44,000km and only just getting close to the wear indicators, with even wear across the tyre. Because of the extreme strip of edge wear I'm getting some v5's F1's to replace them. It will be interesting to see if the specialist tyre place I'm going to use will find any issues in the alignment as the car is about to finally run out of factory warranty. If there is a fault I will want to talk to the dealer soon. They have already told me that the see a lot of this inside edge wear on Euro cars with wider tyres...

No other A4/S4 people out there with ideas on whether there is a fix for the weird wear?

thanks

Jeremy

McDoof

This wear is due to the 4wd system. It happens when you do any turning. The tighter the turn, the more it will scrub the inside edge. If you are 44k on the tyres, then that could just be from parking the car and moving around your driveway.
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beeker

Had this too, part of the game
Reality is the tyres are probably due anyway, no need to run them down to slicks

The old q7 was really bad for this
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Alittletuningco

Some people have reported good results from uprated controls arms - I?ve got a set myself but yet to fit them.

Accepted the inside wear as a side effect of the camber on the suspension.

gondwana

Thanks for the comments folks. Sounds like it?s not an unknown problem for the 4WD cars. I didn?t see it with my previous B7 3.2 Avant, but the tyres were not wide or very low profile on that car. New F1 Asymmetric 5 tyres ordered. Thanks again.

user2154

Inside wear is common and is not a warrant issue anyway so no biggie, just rotate your tyres if you feel the need

Gordo

Erroneous statement for two reasons -
1/ Excessive wear IS a WoF issue, especially if any of the carcass construction is revealed - I would certainly expect a note, as it may lead to
2/ the tyre shoulder can wear, and weaken, to the point where sudden failure can lead to a blowout - with my sister's Audi it 'just' caused pressure loss which I spotted when she gave me a lift, and investigated. She was due to make a long trip a few days later and it could have been much more serious.

We put the extreme shoulder wear down to her work's parking spot entailing several tight corners, as did entry/exit of her garage.
My niece's Golf had very heavy shoulder wear, to the point of needing replacement with over half the centre tread left, because she never checked them and, when I did on seeing the wear, they had ~15 PSI in them - just another reason that they MUST incorporate at least basic car maintenance in the licence tests!
These are my thoughts and opinions - sometimes I'm wrong, but not often ;-)

gondwana

Just a follow up on this, now that I have had new Goodyear Asymmetric 5 tyres fitted.

The tyre specialists didn't find any unusual issues with the alignment, but repeated the comment that they see this sort of extreme edge wear on other German cars a lot, especially Merc's on the rear. They are located amongst lots of German dealers so I think they see their fare share of the Euro cars.

My car doesn't do much tight cornering for parking, or tight turning on driveways. It does mainly highway driving on pretty straight roads. Their suggestion was to run higher pressures on the rear and I will try this, but I'm not going to increase the pressures too much as it just gives the car a harsher ride than it already has on our uneven and rough chipped roads. I'm not unhappy getting 44,800km out of the set of tyres, but I will try to rotate them at 8K rather than the 10K I did. Certainly wear that you will never see on the rears unless the wheel comes off.. so its worth rotating to not let it catch you out.

I see off the alignment sheet that the rear camber is -1.6, with the fronts slightly less. To look at the car I would have thought the reverse. I don't know if that is much or not really. The new tyres feel more compliant and quieter.... but pretty much as you would expect any new tyre to feel when it has so much more rubber than the old tyres... so time will tell. The steering feels the same as with the v3's though, but it does look like the rim protector is bigger than before and that can't but help. Like the old tyres the new ones are made in Germany.

Time will tell whether they were a good investment at $459 each. A workmate with a B9 S4 has just put the more expensive Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S on, so it will be interesting to see how these wear.
Thanks for all the comments.

Jeremy

Long Black

Interesting discussion. I have a B8 S4 Avant and running 255/35-19s Inside tyre wear is bad especially on Nitto Invo tyres. Having to replace all four while still plenty of tread on the outer. Had alignment done, rotated every 10k. Bit frustrating as I've only done 30,000km.
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Gordo

You guys thought about having the 'shop set up the camber with a little less negative?
Remember, the OEM settings are ALWAYS a compromise, so a little tweaking is in order if required.
These are my thoughts and opinions - sometimes I'm wrong, but not often ;-)

Worms

My Touran runs the same rear suspension as MK5 platform cars, but it's converted to 4WD - so basically the same as an MK5 R32 or 8P A3 3.2.

I used Potenzas RE003s for years, and always had inner tyre wear on the rear, and a little on both edges of the front - but not bad.

Even after replacing the rear lower arm inner bushes (common cause for inner edge wear on this platform, they go soft and allow too much toe/camber change under lateral load) they still wore a bit averagely.

I changed to Continental MaxContact6's last tyre change, as my tyre guy showed me a cut-away of the tyre, and the radial belts actually go right out to the outside of the tread, where a LOT of tyres have them finish much further in. When we checked my RE003's, I could see the edge wear started exactly on the edge of the belt finishing! The outside edges are basically unsupported by radial belts for about 15 or 20mm of the tread. It was so worn there, it looked like it had been rubbing on something and the canvas was almost visible in that area only.

He fits them to all the Big Benzes etc, with a decent wheel alignment and says they wear dead flat.

My Contis have now been on for about 8K kms and I rotated them last night - they are worn dead flat, except a tiny amount of edge wear on the fronts (I live on a very twisty road) None of the wear is unusual. I used to only get about 18K kms out of a set of RE003s. These Contis look like they'll go a lot further and should still be even, I hope!