Uneven tyre wear.

Hi All, I hope you are well. I am hoping for a few ideas to help me diagnose the problem I am having (other than mental!) The rear tyres are wearing in an uneven fashion as per the pictures. The left hand rear tyre in the inside edge is very worn. The inside edge of the right hand side is fine? The bearing is fine. Thoughts on what it can be?
rear-left.jpeg
rear-right.jpeg
 
If the bearings are OK, have you tried looking for a worn bush in the mounting of the rear axle to the body?
 
Hi All, I hope you are well. I am hoping for a few ideas to help me diagnose the problem I am having (other than mental!) The rear tyres are wearing in an uneven fashion as per the pictures. The left hand rear tyre in the inside edge is very worn. The inside edge of the right hand side is fine? The bearing is fine. Thoughts on what it can be?
View attachment 106181View attachment 106182
Bent stub axle, maybe from pothole?
Mac.
 
Tyres look spent to me, has this happened on previous tyres if not i would put some good runner on it and monitor
 
I had a set of 4 new tyres fitted about 3 years go. As this set are directional, I swap front to back every 6 months or so. I did a front left wheel bearing on Saturday and thought I would swap the tyres as well. That's when I saw how bad the rear was. The other rear, as you can see is ok, and there is a couple of mm before it needs replacing. The concern was the uneven wear. This is new, last 6 months for sure and I do check them quite often so I would have said that wear is the last 3 months. Which would make "pothole " sense as the car has been in France on their lovely roads for the last 2years. I only brought it back to the UK in January. Anyway, is it possible to bend a rear stub axle? If so, would it be possible to straighten it. If not, is it possible to replace it? This little car has sentimental value so, if its fixable, I will.
 
New boots and 4 wheel alignment booked for Wednesday. I also checked out a Rear-Stub Axle price. Looking a bushes as well. Hopefully will get it sorted soon.
 
Is rear camber adjustable on the A2?
Mac.
Pretty sure it's not, and all the adjustment you can do is the alignment of the entire rear axle with respect to the rest of the car. Possibly it's had a knock on that back wheel that's moved something in the mountings? Bent stub axle would be another possibility as @PlasticMac said.

The four-wheel alignment needs to be done with one of those computerized optical systems (e.g. by Hunter) that reads the positions of patterned flags placed on the wheels from cameras at the head of the bay. This will allow all four wheels to be set (subject to the limit of their adjustment) with respect to the centre line of the car. If one of the rears is too far out, at least they can tell you which side and in which direction, make suggestions how to remedy it, and it won't affect the other wheels. If the system used is just the laser & mirrors setup, that assumes that the rear wheels are aligned correctly and sets the front wheels inline with respect to them. If one of the rears is out, the front wheel on that side will end up being adjusted to be even further out, which will kill that tyre too.
 
A spirit level, vertically across the rim of the good side, compared to the suspect side would probably give a hint.
Mac.
 
To me the thing that makes most sense is the bent stub axle (In theory the geometry of the rear wheels is fixed). I've looked it up and can see how damage there would/could cause the wear that I am seeing. However, I would have thought that a pothole ding like that would cause tyre and rim damage before bending the stub axle. Its a chunky piece of steel. Having said all of the above, I have driven better roads in sub Saharan Africa. Surry roads are in a terrible state!.
 
Although not in the manual, the only way the rear wheel camber could possibly be adjusted is by fitting shims between the beam and stub axle in the appropriate position. By design the rear tracking is set for life by the use of the bushes and mount on the rear beam.
 
I've changed stub axles for a member and they are quite substancial, I think other things would go before the stub axle, eg wheel, tyre, rear axle getting bent, rear axle moving on its mounting bolts.

I would be doing some basic checks with a good quality steel tape measure, car on level gound, steering wheel set to driving in a straight line, take out the wheel centre caps and measure the centre distance from the wheels o nthe near side and off side, my bet is the side with the wear is a longer distance than the side with normal wear.
Another quick check whilst the car is in the above position is to take a ball of nylon string and pass it around the four wheel parallel to the ground and at wheel centr height, the important thing is to have the string very tight. What you are looking for is any gap between the front and back of the rim to the string ie indicating that the front of the rear wheel is 'steering' either in or out. of note is a difference between the good rear tyre and the bad rear tyre (you must check the wheels are not buckled BEFORE doing the string test, not so important for the tape mease test.

Whilst the above sounds a bit heath robinson I have found issues on cars with adverse tyre wear that the 4 wheel alignment checks didn't find, although I do think the four wheel alignment checks are only has good as the person doing them (fancy machine and useless operator still produced poor results)
 
I had my new tyres fitted and the 4 wheel alignment done. If it is mechanic dependant then I don't stand a chance. The bloke that did the work, hated his job, was sulky and very rude. Anyway, this weekend I am doing the timing belt and will check that rear stub!
 
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