Mini One D rear tyres wearing unevenly, possible cause?

[flyingflea]

My 2005 Mini One D rear tyres are wearing unevenly on the inside, by about 2mm. I check the tyre pressures every week when I fill up and they don't appear to be losing any pressure. Any idea what could be causing this? I have records from the previous owners and it seems to be doing this back in 2006, so maybe the BMW Dealer would fix this free of charge seeing as the fault was present while it was in warranty?

I have a Warranty Direct Extra Care Warranty in place now but I doubt it would cover any diagnostic testing?

[M.O.S]

Sounds like your tracking needs seeing to. Should solve it

[flyingflea]

I didn't think the tracking affected the rear side of things as it was fixed?

[lm_gauci]

Have you taken it to get the tracking done? They will have a look underneath and might be able to see if something is bent/worn.

[flyingflea]

I will do next week when I put a couple of tyres on. I'll get them to rotate them as well.

[Haggi]

because the mini has fully independent rear suspension it needs a full 4 wheel alignment, companies with the correct kit can be found buy typing your post-code into the finder on www.AlignMyCar.co.uk

do not let your mini have a two wheel alignment, do not let any half wit do it

[flyingflea]

My nearest garage on that site is quite some distance away. There are lots of closer garages that offer tracking, can I just phone them up and ask if they can do 4 wheel alignment on my Mini?

[Haggi]

it has to be a 4 wheel alignment and nothing else, its also worth looking seeing how close center of gravity are from you, they are some of the best and they travel about to different race tracks so might be near you

center gravity : suspension & geometry tuning

[flyingflea]

Center Gravity are few hours away...

I shall phone round a few places tomorrow and see if anyone local can offer 4 wheel alignment.

[PK5]

Does the car pull to one side more than the other when you break. To check this drive the car and brake but take hands off the steering wheel see if car pulls.

[MiniMatelot]

I had the same problem with my cooper. Inside edge was bald whilst outside was virtually untouched. Turned out the camber was out. Supposedly a common fault. Cost me about £35 to get it readjusted by a local garage (then another £220 for tyres!)

[flyingflea]

Quote: Originally Posted by PK5 (original)

Does the car pull to one side more than the other when you break. To check this drive the car and brake but take hands off the steering wheel see if car pulls.

Yes, it does pull to one side quite a bit (can't remember which side though, left at a guess). I don't need to have my hands off the wheel to see, I have to fight the car just to keep it straight at times! Tramlines bad as well (especially when going over painted white lines) but from what I've read on here that's normal with 17" high performance tyres.

BTW, the legal tread is 1.6mm but do you think it is worth changing tyres @ 2.5mm?

[flyingflea]

My pair of slightly used Dunlop tyres with 7mm of tread arrived today (bought online) so I'm taking it into a garage to be fitted tomorrow. They also do 4-wheel alignment so hopefully my problems will be sorted after that.

[PK5]

I thin you may need a full wheel balance and tracking checked. Why pay for something that isnt broken. Just ask the fiter to rotate the tyres to the best sides.

[flyingflea]

The garage will do a wheel balance when they fit the tyres and as I said I'll get them to do a full 4-wheel alignment at the same time.

What did you mean by pay for something that isn't broken?

I'll be replacing the front tyres as they are on 2.5mm but that's a good shout about rotating the rear tyres to the front or left to right (whichever they recommend).