Tyres and suspension

[labeline]

Dec 2009 Berlingo 1.6 diesel XTR. I have  been reading through the forum as I have not been on here for a while. Since my last visit my tyre wear issues have continued to plague the car with the best run to date being two years with a set of tyres by Hankook under the Kingstar brand. We have had the geometry checked and are informed that it’s all within limits but we continue to get only a year/10000 miles out of a set of tyres with the outer edges wearing particularly badly on the front and rear driver’s side. Obviously we are driving in the right. We are now on our fifth set of tyres in 6 years. Having got fed up with it we trotted off to the Citroen dealership in nearby Agen.......we live in France...for now. He asked if we drove a lot on country roads.....yes we did. Well that’s the reason he said. He thought 15000 Kms was pretty good wear but suggested I pump the tyres up harder. I have therefore pumped them up to 2.9 bar at the rear and 2,75 at the front and will see if that makes any difference. I am tempted to get the geometry checked again but our local garage seems to thing 15k is ok kilometereage for a car here. Flabbergasted!

On another matter, I have a knock in my front suspension. My mechanic said it would be the drop links, which as it turned out were knackered but after replacing them the noise is still there. I am pretty certain it’s on the drivers side and manifests itself over bumps and rough roads. Is there a test I can do to see if it’s the top mounts? It went in for a CT a few months ago and nothing was mentioned.

Apart from that this car is perfect for living here. I just wish the tyres lasted longer.

[casaerica]

Good advise on tyre inflation. But style of driving can kill tyres. Tyres seem to last me forever. I do tend to over inflate my tyres to get them to wear in the centres. Also tracking can be adjusted to the outer limits of the tolerances depending on what edges (inner or outer) your tyres are wearing on.

[labeline]

Good advise on tyre inflation. But style of driving can kill tyres. Tyres seem to last me forever. I do tend to over inflate my tyres to get them to wear in the centres. Also tracking can be adjusted to the outer limits of the tolerances depending on what edges (inner or outer) your tyres are wearing on.

We are sedate drivers. The speed limit here is 50mph on single lanes roads so no opportunities for careless driving. I am also going to adopt the French method of driving in the middle of the road.

[jj9]

I know it doesn't help with the tyre wear problem but if you were to swap the tyres around they would last you longer.

The tyres will more than likely be directional so they would have to be removed from the rims to be put on the opposite side.

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[labeline]

I know it doesn't help with the tyre wear problem but if you were to swap the tyres around they would last you longer.

The tyres will more than likely be directional so they would have to be removed from the rims to be put on the opposite side.

.

At the moment I am running the two passenger side tyres on the front. It has given me an extra 4 months of wear and there is still a bit to go. Hopefully I will get 18 months total out of this pair and I will see what increasing the pressures on the new rears achieves with edge wear. If they wear more evenly I will be pleased but I am not sure whether they will,last longer.

[Lighty]

If you grap the top of the wheel when the car is sitting normally on its 4 wheels. Pull the wheel in & out and you will here a clonk if the top mount has failed. Trouble with the B9’s is that the dampers also wear & become noisy, thus can only be ascertained by stripping the damper down to its basic form & checking for play in the piston .

[labeline]

If you grap the top of the wheel when the car is sitting normally on its 4 wheels. Pull the wheel in & out and you will here a clonk if the top mount has failed. Trouble with the B9’s is that the dampers also wear & become noisy, thus can only be ascertained by stripping the damper down to its basic form & checking for play in the piston .

Thanks. I will try that but it’s having a service in the next three weeks so I will get it checked. If you have to strip the damper unit down to check for wear I may as well change the damper units anyway. I am really surprised that it passed its Contrôle Technique if the dampers were worn but I guess they may have been good enough.

[Mr Keef]

If you grap the top of the wheel when the car is sitting normally on its 4 wheels. Pull the wheel in & out and you will here a clonk if the top mount has failed. Trouble with the B9’s is that the dampers also wear & become noisy, thus can only be ascertained by stripping the damper down to its basic form & checking for play in the piston .

Thanks. I will try that but it’s having a service in the next three weeks so I will get it checked. If you have to strip the damper unit down to check for wear I may as well change the damper units anyway. I am really surprised that it passed its Contrôle Technique if the dampers were worn but I guess they may have been good enough.

[Mr Keef]

Probably little consolation but I just traded in my 2014 Bingo with a full MOT and the original tyres still on it - a bit thin now, but enough to pass the MOT. Had 37000 miles on the clock. No issues with uneven wear. Your wear sounds like a driving issue - I have heard similar stories from tyre fitters who report the issue is driving over speed bumps whilst trying to straddle the bumps - leading to premature wear on the insides. Outside wear is usually tracking - the dealer tracking set-up is often a simple affair - might be worth getting checked at a race shop with a more accurate laser system. Finally my daugther had a Yaris with bad rear wear - on that the rear axle was bent !

[labeline]

Probably little consolation but I just traded in my 2014 Bingo with a full MOT and the original tyres still on it - a bit thin now, but enough to pass the MOT.  Had 37000 miles on the clock.  No issues with uneven wear.  Your wear sounds like a driving issue - I have heard similar stories from tyre fitters who report the issue is driving over speed bumps whilst trying to straddle the bumps - leading to premature wear on the insides.  Outside wear is usually tracking - the dealer tracking set-up is often a simple affair - might be worth getting checked at a race shop with a more accurate laser system.  Finally my daugther had a Yaris with bad rear wear - on that the rear axle was bent !

Thanks for the comment but I don’t think it has anything to do with a driving issue. It’s clearly a design fault. We live in rural France and drive almost exclusively on country roads. There are no speed bumps and I do not drive like a maniac. The speed limit here is 50 and we stick to that. If it was a driving style issue it would happen on all of our cars, not just the Berlingo. It has been through two laser alignments and both said it was within tolerance. The dealer suggested 15000 kilometres was all you could expect to get out of a set of tyres from a countryside based car here but when we bought it in the U.K. with 16k miles it already had a new set of tyres and the rears were already showing signs of wear so I had them changed. It looks like I have been particularly unlucky and bought a really bad one. I am going to try and find another alignment centre and see if anything can be done. I am now over inflating the tyres to 2.9 bar at the rear and 2,75 at the front as suggested by the Citroen dealership to see if I get more even wear.