Passat Rear Tyres!!

[Quatrelle]

I'm trying to imagine what sort of suspension linkage would move the wear away from the inside when it's under load.

If the inside is wearing it means either that the rears are toeing out slightly, or the castor angle means the bottom of the wheel is 'sticking out' farther than the top, and that the wheel is therefore leaning in slightly.

I don't have an estate, but it needs someone to check the angle of lean of a rear with a spirit level when the car is empty, and then load it heavily, move it forward no more than a turn, and check again. If the wheel is leaning in more, that shoots down the 'running light' excuse.

My rears are fine - the fronts aren't, but that's another (speed-bumps) story - so I can only presume the estates have a different set-up.

Any suspension experts out there?

[jimgironde]

I have never had problems on the passat, but with a previous car I lightly "kerbed" a tyre which obviously gave a tracking problem which led to premature uneven wear.

[aaronparke]

I took my passat back to the dealer shortly after I'd bought it with what I thought was rear wheel bearing noise. They told me it was uneven wear and that a cure was to put the rears on the front and they'd 'wear back'!?!
I told them I wasn't convinced but they were determined I try for at least a couple of weeks.
I took the car back within days due to awful vibrations through the steering and demanded new tyres.
They took the Conti's off and put two brand new Federals on. I went straight back to the service manager and asked *** have they had put on my car? His reply was that Federal's (he pronounced them Federales, like you would Integrale as in Lancia) were good tyres. I told him that Pronouncing the name in a foreign way doesn't make **** tyres any good and that I wanted like-for-like for the Conti's. They put some Michelins on after lots of heated debate and swearing. On an internet search it turns out the Federal model they put on were £50 a piece van tyres!

[ionic]

I think tyre noise from the rear is quite common on other models as well.

I was told there are various reasons, particularly that the sound resonates through the back, especially hatches/estates & is made worse by the fact that modern cars have wider tyres with bigger diametres so theres less rubber to absorb the noise/vibration.

I had the problem on my my vectra 1.9 & bmw330ci & both times it was premature tyre wear. ( I never carry much either!)

I've not noticed it so far on the Passat.

[Subira]

I have a similar problem on my B6 estate recently, and have had the problem on previous 2 x MK5 Golfs. Unfortunately I think its tracking, it seems that it is rarely set correctly from the factory.

If the rear wheel is toeing out by a few degrees, this seems to wear the inside of the tyre to cause the tyre to go out of shape - each tread block seems to wear at a different rate and the tyre is mis-shaped. This causes the bearing like rumbling. Stick the spare on and it goes away. Picture that effectively the tyre is being pulled down the road leading on the inside edge.

Best thing to do is not to take it to VW, find a Pro-Align machine and have a full four wheel done. It will be a fraction of the VW price (I was quoted £250 by the dealer, and I paid only 15% of that at the Tyre Dealer). Get them to set it in the middle of the settings - the Pro-Align has all the VW settings and is the same machine as the dealer will use.

Unfortunately the tyres don't 'come back' once the tracking is corrected so its a new tyre(s) as well. As I said this is just my experience but this is the third car that has shown the same problem.

The Dealer is generally not interested and doesn't understand the problem, normally asks if I've hit a kurb, oh must be a defective tyre etc etc. Next new car is going to need the Pro-Align as part of the PDI.

[morellim]

Hi, I have a 2005 Passat 2.0 TDI S saloon with the sawtooth problem. I have had a bush changed on the rear of the car under warranty followed by 4 wheel alignment and the problem seems to have improved but not completely resolved.

Sorry Im not tehnical so can not advise which bush was changed.

[BROOKLINE]

OK.. update from Brookline.. our 4 new shape passats have had 4 wheel alignment (with a local lazor track garage) with the rear tyres set out of scope from VW recommendation. We opted to set them to toe in very slightly.. which is the opposite to what VW want. (every car we tested had rear tyres set to toe out..hence inner edge wear!) So if you do take your passat to VW for a wheel alignment to VW spec it may still continue to scrub out the inner edge. We have run them on a softer compound tyre (and cheaper incase this did not work) and from only covering upto 30k on Michelin rear tyres..we have now increased this to 60K..on a budget tyre at half the price..effectively doubling the life of the rear tyres and halving the cost! I do have one car starting to rumble but this has now covered 64K on the budget tyre which I think is not bad considering.. we cover a very high mileage so to us the rear tyre problem and tracking paid off as the 55 plate car has a mileage of 185k! If you only plan to keep your car till say 60k it probably is not worth messing with.. just buy something else next time! lol... Hope this info helps..

[Happy,But]

I operate 10 VW Passats..4 of which are the new model (55-07 plate) all of these cars are suffering from excesive inner rear tyre wear!! At about 30,000miles the rear tyres will start to rumble like a rear wheel bearing. The inside edges of the tyres will be out of shape having humps/bumps on the inner edges which will create a drown from the rear. VW Customer services say they are not aware of any problem with rear tyres.. However I have 4 cars doing the same..my local dealer has seen many other cars doing the same too!

I have in my possession an internal document from VW Tech regarding what they call "Saw-Tooth Wear" which is effecting passats... I think VW are trying to keep quiet about this issue...So.. if you have a passat with this problem get hold of your dealer or VW. So far I am less than impressed with VW Customer services which want me to pay to have all 4 cars into the dealer to have a full four wheel alignment. One car has been and cost over £400.00!! So I think NOT! Going to take it further now...........

I too have a 2007 dsg 140 2.0 tdi estate fab car in general however @35k exactly as you describe the inner wear appeared this coincided with changing the 2 front with the same a before (Michelin@£150ish each),anyway my dealer said to get the 4 wheel alignment done,which I did @ £115 they were nearly perfect.
What now?.................new rears put up & shut up or an answer & action from VW?

[rrai]

I too have a Passat 140 DSG saloon on a 57 plate that has been serviced recently. I mentioned to the service Manager that there was a rumble from the rear more noticable at Motorway speeds, he adviced that both rear tyres were stepped ( his explanation a bit like a fifty pence piece ) on checking both inner edges of the tyres had this. Was quoted £280 to replace both Dunlop tyres. Car has done 30,000 miles

[pendle wizard]

Hi same problem here Passat 2.0 Tdi sport with 172 dunlops, car sounded like bearings had gone at back, checked the tyre and there is what looks like a saw tooth effect on the tyre, tried rotating tyre onto front to see if it evened it out .
Now its noisy from front.

Is there a cure to stop the car doing this?????