Kx: Alignment checked?

Provie:

I must confess that since these three years I have not done anything alignment or balancing on that back. I did front alignment in December last year. Then the technician inspected the back and said it does not need alignment/balancing.

GAZZUZZ:

https://www.nairaland.com/520025/mercedes-benz-thread

mayor2013: Go for alignments bro

Provie:

So I must go thru the 49-page thread b4 I get an assistance I need urgently? Ok.

Provie:

Tanx bro. I wil do dat asap.

CityNG: 1) The Mercedes that I've personally owned (10 or so) were notorious for wearing out rear tires.

2) What type of wear are talking about on yours? Mine wears evenly and mostly are due to my aggressive driving. If you drive spiritedly then you will expect your tires to wear out more. Since your car is rear wheel drive and factoring in the torque delivery of Mercedes then wear is unlikely.

3) 4 months seems like very quick but how many miles do you drive? That is the true measuring stick. If you drive 5,000 miles in 4 months then there's issue but if you drive 65,000 in one month then that may be inline with the thread life expectancy of the tires.

4) What is the type of tires that you're buying? Some tires are performance tires and they wear fast. You should read the side of the wall to see the type and rating. See attached picture.

5) While alignment adjustments on the rear of your Mercedes is rarely needed (nothing moves back there as much as the front) there are issues that may occur due to work our parts or hitting debris or hole on the road.

Provie:

Thanks for ur useful tips. Like I said, I have covered only about 6,000km, wit over half of it on d highway on excellent tar. Even d city drives are on equally excellent road. I am the very careful type (not being immodest anyway); but once I hit the highway I'm always around 120km/hr.

The wear is even, not one-sided. One more fact: about two years ago, I changed the rear tyres from 195 to 205 while retaining 195 at the front.

CityNG:

In my opinion, you do not need an alignment then.

So what tires are you buying and what is the thread rating? Perhaps the tires are meant for a lighter weight car.

Provie:

Sorry I'm not conversant with the Rating thing; but I can see something like 205/65 R15 R305. Then also 91H

CityNG: So it looks to me like you have the correct sized tire as well as the correct load rating. In fact since your car is lighter than an American spec C220 (we require more safety stuff than most other countries hence why some brands suchs a Peugeot, FIAT, etc can't be sold in the US - though FIAT just came in after making a lots of changes) then your tires have more than the necessary load rating, the 91H part. So keep that in mind for the future.

The 91 = load
The H = speed rating up to 210kph, I don't think you are going over that speed but if you are going faster than that then maybe you can upgrade to a higher rating. I use Z on my hot rods even though I will never see 180mph consistently.

So look at the two attached pictures.

The 520 is the rating of expected calculate miles ratio to travel before you can reasonable wear out the threads. The higher the number the better the life expectancy of the tire. This tire will last for along time. Based on my experience you can expect 50, - 60,000 miles.

The second picture is 180, this is a high end tires that will fit your car but will wear out quickly, outstandingly quickly but will return eye popping performance in terms of grip in excellent weather and road condition. Don't even think of driving in the rain on this tire. Based on my experience you'll be lucky to get 6, - 8,000 miles from this guys.

So now if you can see such a number on your tire will tell you what type of tire you have. For my daily driver car I never buy anything less than 400 rating.

If you have time and megabyte the site TireRack.Com is an excellent resource on buying or learning about tires.

PS: There is a difference between the stock size 195/65/15 and what you have on 205/65/15 but the difference is negligible, IMHO. See picture number 3.

ikeyman00: @@

may be you wheel bearing is gone; hence the friction is wearing down your tyre

maybe you had a broken frame under still

and all in all i do not think this is good for your engine and gear

as this is extra burden

CityNG:

@ OP, I don't think this is the case but in case you wanted to do a quick validation before taking it in to a shop.


After a mild drive where you hav enot used the brakes as much pull over and carefully place your hand on the middle of the wheel. A bit difficult since you have no real comparison data but you want to see if you have excessive heat which is a tell tale sign of wheel bearing going bad.

Another test is that you should roll down your rear windows and listen when there are no cars around. Most of the times you will hear screeching noises from the bearing if they are going bad. Not an absolute though.

The final test is to raise the rear of the car on each side and roll the tires (cars has to be in neutral and hand brake not set so outmost safety using wheel chocks is paramount). Again it's one of those things that you have no validation data. but the wheel should rotate a few cycles before stopping.

I personally don't think you have bad wheel bearings. But in my language we say "Iwakiwa la nwa oun ti oba sonu".