Lateral tyre wear - rear of C5 - series 3 2009 Exclusive

[UFO]

About 40,000km ago I put four new Bridgestone Potenza RE050A tyres on my C5 as an alternative to the eye wateringly expensive Michelin Primacy. About $200(Aus) per corner saving. The tyres have performed very well, except...

It seems they wear strangely on the rear, or perhaps it is only one side on the rear. There is lateral wear marks across the tyres, and recently when I had the fronts replaced I asked them to move the older rears to the front as per recent discussions on here and in the Citroenian. The drive home that afternoon was almost deafening as the roar from the now front tyres was horrendous. Soon back to the tyre dealer and the now fronts moved back to the rear and were swapped left to right.

Previously to this there was noise from the rear tyres and this can now be attributed to the strange wear.

Have others had similar experiences? If so, what has been the outcome?

I did ask the dealer when getting the 80,000km service to check the alignments and was advised that they are OK. I am now thinking that the rear wheel alignment is not. So should I get a four wheel alignment done?

Awaiting your responses.

[Peter.N.]

Could be that the tyres were faulty, I bought an XM that pulled to the right for three years until I changed the Goodyear tyres which were nearly new when I got it. Just keep an eye on them now and see if the same thing is happening again. I have had no tyre wear issues with my C5s - but they are old ones.

Peter

[DickieG]

Firstly have you had the rear tracking checked, it is adjustable so get a four way alignment done.

On mine when I bought it it was fitted with 245/40/19 Bridgestone 050's all round with unusual/excessive wear on the inside edge of the rear tyres and the steering wheel was tilted to one side (IIRC to the left) when travelling straight ahead. I had a four wheel alignment done but other than finding the rear tracking requiring adjustment all was supposedly well, however the steering wheel was still tilted to one side, several alignment check's later using four different machines the problem remained. Swapping both front and rear tyres left to right but it made no difference, I later fitted two new rear tyres and this straightened the steering wheel suggesting that the tyre wear had been causing the rear of the car to crab slightly.

The new tyres I fitted were Dunlops (as fitted to XF Jaguars) which are quieter, so far I've only replaced the rear ones, the vast majority of the tyre noise eminates from the front but replacing those will have to wait until they wear down more.