Tyre wear woes

Doctor D ("Doctor D" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

That rear arm's bent.

I know you say it's never been kerbed, but that rear arm is definitely bent. Are you the ONLY person who's ever driven the car?

I thought that before the work on the rear suspension, and was sure it would clear up afterwards, but it's unchanged. The tyre wear is also very even, would that be the case with a bent arm?

My wife has never driven it without me in the car, and the only other people are the main dealer guys (rare, they never had it very long as I used to sit and wait for it) and latterly my local village mechanic who I trust implicitly.

Sounds a bit odd for a front drive car that - is there a roundabout you go around regularly in an enthusiastic manner? Though getting 30k from the fronts I doubt you drive that quick anyhow!

Doctor D ("Doctor D" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Because the same - bent - rear arm is still fitted.

It's consistently bent, so yep.

If something was out of alignment, you would normally expect uneven tyre wear, either in the form of uneven wear across the tread (ie one side wears quicker), or scrubbing. Also, if one side was causing problems, you'd normally expect it to have an effect on the opposite side.

Personally, I'd recommend you take it to somewhere that does proper 4 wheel alignment (it. not you local tyre chain), explain the problem to them, and get them to check it. Even though there's limited adjustibility on the rear axle on these (you can get a little bit of adjustment on the rear axle mounting bolts), they should still be able to tell you if there's anything wrong with the geometry on any of the wheels.

Take it for a full 4 wheel alighnment, where they check not only the front wheel toe-in, caster, camber etc, but also that the rear wheels are tracking correctly in relationship to the front wheels and chassis.

It sounds very much that either the rear suspension was rebuilt incorrectly, or something is damaged. It'll cost a few quid for the check but it should reveal any faults in the suspension setup. Mike.

IIRC the rear suspension on these needs some trick equipment to change the bearings, it is not a job for the average garage as they will not have the right equipment and cannot successfully do the job without (as you have found out) It needs to go to a suitably equipped garage and be fixed properly, the repairs may exceed the value of the car.

Mrcheerful

Nothing special about doing the bearings, other than it takes alot of time.

You've got to drop the complete axle of, and totally dismantle it (if it comes apart it's easy, but if it's rusted up then...). Worst mistake you can make is not put the torsion bar(s) back in on the right splines, so it either sits lop-sided, too low, or too high.

Thanks guys. Just wanted to check I wasn't missing anything obvious. The local main dealer rebuilt the rear suspension and they are usually pretty good. I think I may fit another tyre and live with it until I change it in March. I doubt I'll do another 15,000 by then.

Yes Tim, I don't tend to race about much and the bulk of my journeys are long motorways ones. The first set of pads lasted 70,000 miles and I'm still on the original discs and rears. I used to race about but then realised nobody pays me more if I do, and it costs me more in fuel and wear and tear!

moray ("moray" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

...then there's the small detail of the original post explicitly saying that the back end was only apart last year, whilst the tyre wear's been like this for much longer...