# Eric, Tire wear inside rear mk4



## happysquid (Jan 4, 2002)

I purchased from you, great setup till recent, hope you can help. MM spiders 18x8 with KDW-2's 225/40/18. Weitec coils, nuespeed sway stiffest setting and 15mm spacers. Fronts are wearing even, Rears are cupping on inside and my car has always had visible toe in the rear. (like the old bugs) 
I think if I had rotated earlier I could have made last a lil longer but I want to know if something i can do to fix for next set of wheels which I'm sure you'll help me again soon.


----------



## Sheep (Dec 21, 2000)

*Re: Eric, Tire wear inside rear mk4 (happysquid)*

"toe-in"... you mean camber I believe. It's highly unusual for a Mk4 to show positive camber; it's usually other way around, not like old (pre-'67 Beetles). And you'd be more likely to have wear on outside of tire with that condition. If you have a bad factory setup, you'll need to have them shim the rear axle to align... a tire service place would not touch that.
It is an EXTREMELY common problem on Mk4's to show cupping on inside of rear tires even with everything at spec. After you rotate them, the "good front" tires on rear will then begin cupping also, and the noise problem will increase as they wear more... the rears will "sing" with the cupped fronts (formerly on rear) and you can get some pretty loud droning at low speeds, only becoming less noticable at high speeds.
This exact same situation occurred on my Jetta with 18x8's ET35. Took it to my dealer who had a couple young techs who also auto-Xed. He found that many brands of hi-perf directional tires among fellow competitors developed this same pattern on their Mk4's. They check my alignment and found everything to be exactly within spec. I had 1st gen RE730's at time







My OEM tires on that car were Michelin non-directional H's and never showed a problem. I had to replace one of my rear RE's due to severly damaged tire belt from a bolt and got one Seiberling Z/directional and it never cupped!
I'd check around with other Mk4 owners to see what brand of tires they use and have less of problem than you have. I kind of think those performance tires you have may just be ones more prone to cupping.
Only suggestions; hope it steers you to solution.


----------

