[diablo]

My i30 is nearly six years old but it has only 9000 miles on the clock as I rarely do much other than visit shops or friends. It might be almost as cheap to use taxis but I like having the car.

My MOT is due soon and when looking at the one from last year I noticed it had an advisory note that all four tyres were cracked. Not wishing to have the MOT place ring me up to say that it had failed on the tyres I decided I'd get some new ones fitted beforehand.

So I took it in last Wednesday and the chap who was replacing them sparked up 'You know these tyres don't need replacing ??' and I told him about the cracks and MOT note and he said he'd only checked the tread depths.

When leaving he gave me  the inspection sheet he filled out before starting work. It showed that the tyres had worn evenly across their width and that the fronts had 5mm and rears 4mm.

Now some people accuse me of driving to fast, more acceleration than they'd use and also going round corners too quickly - even though I go slow when I have passengers.  But what puzzles me is why the front tyres had more tread than the rears? In a FWD car that ain't supposed to happen.

One old chum suggested that I drifted the rear of the car when driving alone.    But I don't do that.

Any ideas? Or maybe the tyre bloke got his figures mixed up??

[Surferdude]

Either he mixed up his figures or, more likely,  they've been rotated at a service without telling you.

You HAVE serviced it, haven't you? 

[diablo]

Either he mixed up his figures or, more likely,  they've been rotated at a service without telling you.

You HAVE serviced it, haven't you? 

I know it is regular in Australia but they don't usually rotate tyres in the UK as far as I'm aware, but that would be a logical explanation I suppose.

[Surferdude]

Either he mixed up his figures or, more likely,  they've been rotated at a service without telling you.

You HAVE serviced it, haven't you? 

I know it is regular in Australia but they don't usually rotate tyres in the UK as far as I'm aware, but that would be a logical explanation I suppose.

TBH, it's not regular here either. It should be and/or it should be offered.
It should NEVER be done unannounced.
In my observation, mix ups occur during servicing because mechanics/ apprentices don't always take note of where the wheels came from and it's not unusual to see a stack of four sitting in front of or behind a car on a hoist. 

PS. I note Qwik Fit are suggesting rotation should not be done for the same reason it's now suggested you have your best tyres on the rear.

This comment however, puzzles me.

•In the unlikely event that a tyre deflates suddenly, then it is easier to control the vehicle if this occurs at the front of the vehicle. For improved handling and stability it is now recommended that the ‘best’ tyres should always be fitted at the rear of the vehicle. This is irrespective of whether the car is front or rear wheel drive

The reason it puzzles me is that in all my years in the industry I have seen a lot of tyres which have gone flat. In almost every case, if the tyre was on the front, it became immediately obvious to the driver - with for instance, heavy steering and generally they have pulled over early enough to have the tyre still in a repairable condition. On the rear, especially on front wheel drives, the damage is much worse and generally unrepairable, simply because the driver hasn't even realised they have a flat until someone drives alongside and tells them. In enough cases to be statistically significant, the damage has been bad enough to include the rim.

All of which reminds me of a situation many years ago when I was navigation in a rally for a guy who was very quick. His car was a pretty modified Fiat 128. We were running alloy Cromodora mags (no expense spared for this guy. He was a dentist.) About 5 miles (Yep. It was THAT long ago) into a 25 mile section, sliding a bit, we hit a decent sized rock with the back of the car. In hindsight, the tyre deflated at that point. To the driver the car still felt OK and we completed the stage. Set a pretty competitive time and were still leading our class. Although all that was left of the tyre were a couple of strips of sidewall about 2" high, the wheel turned out to be undamaged. We had it crack tested and checked for run out. So, two things. 1/ Cromodora mags FTW. 2/ Handling even on loose surfaces, not greatly affected by a flat rear tyre.

Sorry. Got a bit off topic.