Wheel wear inner edge

[pineapples]

I have noticed some severe inner wheel wear on the front, both sides are identical, looks like camber wear but apparently this cant be adjusted? The depth of the tread indicators is basically the same for all 3 of the main grooves, this is the second set of tyres that have done this and are less than 20000km.

Any thoughts?

[brad]

The camber is adjustable if you move the subframe but as you take from one side you give to the other.

If it's the RH front with the inside wear it's probably a toe out issue. You really won't know until you get it on the rack.

What tyre pressures are you running?

I'd recommend somewhere but "NSW" is a fairly big place

[alexaescht]

Hmm interesting. My sister's Polo had this issue not long ago, the wear on the front tyres looked the same as yours. The tyre shop did a front end alignment (which as we know is only toe) and so far so good with the new set of tyres.

[brad]

What part of "camber can be adjusted by moving the subframe" don't you understand? It's in the workshop manual.

There are many ways to change a wheel alignment without having an adjuster.

[alexaescht]

What part of "camber can be adjusted by moving the subframe" don't you understand? It's in the workshop manual.

There are many ways to change a wheel alignment without having an adjuster.

I do understand that. What I wrote was not all that succinct. I was trying to say that the average tyre shop probably won't be moving the subframe to fix an issue caused by incorrect toe.

[amazeer]

In a polo I believe that excessive neg camber on one side would equal excessive pos camber on the other.

Camber problem would be even wear around the tyre. The bottom photo looks like there is more wear on the trailing edge of the block, which indicates excess toe out problem. If so its an easy fix even for chain store wheel aligner/tyre shops.

[jebusv20]

I've seen this before on my first set of tyres for my Polo. On my car it ended being 5mm total toe out, which is about 10 times more than it should. My wear was like this after 5000KM though, I'd look in to getting a new allignment, ask for the sheet.

[dtulloh]

I've seen this before on my first set of tyres for my Polo. On my car it ended being 5mm total toe out, which is about 10 times more than it should. My wear was like this after 5000KM though, I'd look in to getting a new allignment, ask for the sheet.

My mechanic discovered that I had this problem and resolved it by moving the subframe, working with a tyre specialist to get the alignment. They did before and after measurements and they got it near to spec through trial and error.

I believe this happened as the dealer had the subframe out when repairing the DSG under warranty.

[Martin]

I have noticed some severe inner wheel wear on the front, both sides are identical
The depth of the tread indicators is basically the same for all 3 of the main grooves

Looks normal to me, same thing happened on my Octavia (got 55,000km out of the front tyres)
As both sides are the same and groves are all the same depth this confirms everything is ok

It's probably castor wear from a lot of sharp turning using a lot of steering
Castor induced negative camber works the inside edge of the tyre

This wear can chew through the inner edge and into the core of the tyre prematurely ending the tyre's usable life
The solution is to flip the tyre over on the rim half way through the expected life/km

By all means have the toe-in checked

looks like camber wear but apparently this cant be adjusted?

Takes a lot of km for camber to do that - toe hurts more quickly than camber

Your polo would not have enough negative camber on the front to cause this wear
I ran -1:45 camber on the Octavia for 55,000km and got the same result as you
Your Polo probably only has 1 degree of negative camber at the front

The Mazda3 SP23 has -2~-2.5 degrees of negative camber at the rear
After 30,000km it bevels the inner edge of the rear tyres
But that's twice the likey camber that the front of your Polo would have

I have seen UK posts claiming that the Polo camber has 3 possible positions
The shock is offset in the top hat/mount
So unbolting the shock top mounts and rotating the threads into the next hole would change the camber
I am somewhat skeptical - the top shock mounting holes in many FWD cars are not symmetrical, there is only one viable installation option
But hey - check it out - maybe get lucky

this is the second set of tyres that have done this and are less than 20000km.

Check with other Polo owners on tyre range/life
(Smaller wheels revolve quicker, a lot of highway km may result in low km from the tyres?)
If 20,000km is low for the Polo try a different brand/model of tyre

[JonW]

My GTI wore like yours in approx 25k kms, the adjustment was totally out on one side when you look at the platronics test the dealer does. i had new tyres and (I guess since it was at the tyre place) a toe alignment and it was fine after. The subframe on my car had been out quite a bit lol... but the dealer maintained Id hit a pot hole. sigh... I knew I hadnt but what can you do...