My wife's car has recently been making some strange rumbling sounds from the rear. My initial thought was a wheel bearing problem but I had a garage look at it and they found the wheel bearings were OK but one of the rear tyres had worn in an uneven pattern around the circumference. Every inch or so there is high wear then low wear right around the tyre circumference. (A bit like the pastry cutter my mum uses to cut out mince pies - though not so exagerated)

I've never seen tyre wear like that before. The garage said it was down to poor road surfaces and a poor quality tyre. I've put the spare on and the noise has reduced but I don't think it's gone completely. It got me wondering what has caused this - maybe worn shocks?

Any thoughts?

The car is a Toyota Celica, 60k miles on an 03 plate, so fairly old but not too many miles. The suspension is not bouncy at all and it still corners well.

Thanks

Could be wheel alignment issue poor tyre or incorrect tyre pressures happens alot these days with low profile tyres no flex in s/walls its called tread blocking makes a noise like a worn w/bearing as said...

Photos mate?

I've had a Celica, the gen 6 and currently have an Auris. Never had tyre wear issues like that.

Rob

take a look at this may help

http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/991515-identify-cause-of-uneven-tire-wear-2.html

Sounds like SAW TOOTH tyre wear to me.

Pretty well documented on the web and seems to be related to IRS cars (FWD or RWD). Generally observed on the inner edge of the tyres where the tread blocks wear in an up/down fashion. Cheap tyres and certain tread patterns (heavily directional are said to be the worst) make it worse. Typically the inside shoulder can be completely wrecked with 3-5mm of good tread left on the outer edge of the tyre.

It's caused by and makes the tyre skip along the road surface, hence the rumbling noise, which invariably people detect as a worn wheel bearing.

Manufacturers and their main dealers seem comfortable with it being a "characteristic" of their vehicles. Reality (IMHO) is that they ought to recognise that millions of tyres are being scrapped prematurely through poor design. Of course that won't happen as they've spent £££££ on R&D and they can't possibly be wrong, can they.

[Edited on 9/4/13 by nick205]

internal leak on shock absorber, it's quite common

Saw tooth wear not uncommon had it on my wifes
206cc and my mate on a Passat

Often referred to as "blocking, cupping, stepping".
Tyre choice affects it, as do common problems, but its an issue on some models
My old Saab was one of them

Pic here



[Edited on 9/4/13 by ReMan]

Fairly common problem on cars with multilink rear suspension

Had exactly the same on my Mondeo estate. Rumblings from the rear......oooo errrr !! ;-) seriously same issue. Uneven tyre wear. The tyre shop diagnosed the issue straight away after they asked me a series of questions to narrow down the possibilities. Turns out it was all down to inadequate maintemce I.e. keeping tyre pressures at correct psi. I had exactly the same replacement tyre put on.....just some cheap Nexen 6000s, done 3 times the mileage on this set of tyres compared to the old set with no unevenness at all. The secret, weekly or bi weekly tyre pressure checks.

Other possible causes to the unevenness I was told could be down to leaky / knackered shocks OR carrying heavy loads frequently.

Had similar issues wear issues also noise with my Subaru Impreza rears in the past and wife's TT suffered noise.

TT was put down to the tyres being about 6 years old and become stiff due to old age - yes like me!

Impreza as someone had in the past screwed up all the geometry, shame that as it took 2 sets of tyres to sort it.

Good photo.