Problem After 4 x New Tyres Fitted

[paid2travel]

Just replaced all the original tyres on my recently bought 2012 LHD Ducato Cab, Hymer Carado A366 with the exact same brand ie; Continental 215/70 R15 VancoCamper. After driving back from National Tyres, I noticed a relatively gentle pull to the left for the first time.

 

The MH has only done 17,000 miles, so my initial thoughts was to have the tracking done but after reading some previous threads, I'm not yet convinced this will fix the problem.

 

Is there any merit to the suggestions that positioning of coloured lines on new tyres, variance of weight disposition during tyre manufacture and even the date of a tyre displayed either on the inner or outer side has an influence as to how it could change the driving dynamics ?

 

Thanks Martin

[mikefitz]

New tyres may feel a bit strange for the first few miles, but a pull to one side is unusual. Check the following, tyre pressure, wheel bolt security, the actual tyre size fitted, tyres differing considerably in age. You may already have examined these areas. A trip back to National tyres for their advice maybe needed.

There is a remote chance something was damaged or disturbed when the van was jacked up.

 

Mike

[weldted]

If there is nothing obvious, get the tyre company to swop the wheels from left to right. If it pulls to the opposite side it’s the tyres if it doesn’t check steering. Different size tyres shouldn’t make it pull to one side.

[Steve928]

Yes, the 'pull' marker lines on the tyres can have a big effect on pull and tyre fitters should know to fit tyres in balanced pairs.You may be able to improve the situation by moving wheels around on the vehicle with reference to the pull markers (usually the red or blue line) or you may need to have some tyres reversed on their wheels if the fitters have fitted them without regard to these indicators. The attached pictures explains how it works.

 

I used to use a deliberately chosen set of front tyres with a large pull indicated and installed so as to pull right (both red lines on the RH side) to correct a noticeable left pull due to an inherent chassis misalignment on my Bailey.

 

Sadly many tyres fitters take no notice of these lines, much as they ignore the red dot indicating the heavy point of the tyre which can be used, in conjunction with the marked heavy point of the rim, to reduce the need for balancing. I recently took back a set of alloy wheels with winter tyres which had been fitted with a staggering 105g of balance weights on 2 of the wheels because the red dot had been fitted almost at the heaviest point of the wheel. With the tyres refitted correctly they needed only 5 or 10g of weights.

 

Edit: if the pic is too small the full version is here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n1WQxzKSTU4lOoPmQqYzYDP3R-zogyeE/view?usp=sharing

[Derek Uzzell]

Martin

 

The mysteries of the coloured stripes on tyres are covered here

 

https://tinyurl.com/y7c9nxlo

 

It may simply be that, during your motorhome’s previous period of ownership, its steering geometry was adjusted to compensate for tyre-wear and, now that new tyres have been fitted, the tracking needs to be realigned.

 

I’m doubtful that National Tyres & Autocare outlets would concern themselves with any ‘fitting markings' on an ordinary light-conmmercial-vehicle tyre. Swapping the front wheels laterally might be revealing and it would be worth confirming that the tyres have been correctly inflated. But the sensible thing to do would be to go back to National Tyres and tell them that your motorhome previously drove ‘hands off’ in a straight line but now deviates to the left and that you believe there may be something wrong with the Continental tyres they fitted.

 

It’s likely that National Tyres would suggest you bring the motorhome in and have the steering geometry checked and (as you have just given them a good deal of money!) hopefully they would do this free of charge.

[Derek Uzzell]

It also needs asking what National Tyres did regarding the motorhome's tyre-valves...

 

It’s probable that Martin’s Carado motorhome had CP-marked ‘camping-car’ tyres (either Continental VancoCamper or Michelin Agilis Camping) as original equipment and - assuming that its wheels are the normal steel ones - that the tyre-valves would have been metal ‘clamp in’ type (likely made by Schrader) to cope with a high inflation pressure (say 5.5bar/80psi). An image of this type of valve is attached below.

 

When a motorhome’s tyres are changed, UK tyre-fitters may choose to replace metal clamp-in valves with ordinary flexible ‘snap-in’ valves designed for cars and a significantly lower maximum inflation pressure. Alternatively (and more acceptably) the tyre-fitter may leave the original clamp-in valve in place and just replace the valve’s core with a new one.

 

After 8 years of use it would probably be best for a clamp-in valve to be replaced, but tyre-fitting companies often do not keep clamp-in valves in stock.

[paid2travel]

Unfortunately due to the distance travelled from the garage, the 'runout' lines that Steve mentioned disappeared after I got back after having had them fitted the day before. There were no yellow dots on the new or old tyres but 3 out of the 4 new tyres had a red dot, the one that didn't was the N/S front.

 

Anyway, went back to National Tyres yesterday. There was a only 2 PSI pressure discrepancy between the N/S & O/S front tyres so not really enough to cause a pull to the left so in the end, I got them to swap the front tyres over but didn't make hardly any difference went returning home.

 

They didn't have a proper setup to arrange for tracking alignment so my next step will be to get that done.

 

My old original Continental VancoCamper tyres already had metal 'clamp in' type valves already fitted but you're right to point this out out Derek. Not knowing this, I probably missed a trick by not requesting new ones to be fitted when I booked up.

 

I choose National Tyres because C&M club were advertising 5% off for members thinking that they would provide a bit more expertise and the fact they stocked my original tyre brand. Although helpful, NT seemed limited in pointing out what you guys already know and have experienced, and they're either not adequately trained or not encouraged to spend the extra time on less common vehicles.

[hallii]

I doubt that National Tyres would do this but... I had the same problem on a car, after some investigation the fitter had jacked the car up under the wishbone suspension arm and had somehow bent the track rod at the same time. Even worse was when another fitter jacked my mini up under the front floor pan, that cost them the repair costs!

H

[Derek Uzzell]

Martin

 

It’s quite likely that, if you had asked National Tyres to replace your original clamp-in valves, they would not have had any suitable ones in stock. (Hopefully they replaced the old valves’ cores.)

 

The clamp-in valve fitted to Ducato steel wheels as original equipment seems to be Schrader’s 65765-68 product and its design is as shown in the photo in my last posting. These are rarely advertised on-line and Schrader only retails them in a box of 10 valves.

 

Clamp-in valves seal against the wheel rim either using a thin-section O-ring (like the Schrader 65765-68 valve) or via a rubber ‘washer'. The latter seal is more tolerant of the condition of the rim’s surface, but the recommended tightening torque is low and real care needs to be taken to avoid overtightening. If the vehicle has the standard full-width plastic wheel trims, my experience indicates that the trims will not fit properly unless the Schrader-design valve is used.

 

Make sure when contacting a company offering wheel alignment services that they have the equipment and experience to deal with a vehicle the size of your Carado.

[BruceM]

Just had all four of the car’s tyres changed by a mobile Kwik Fit fitter. I was able to order on-line from a selection of tyes and pick an installation date. Much more convenient than having to trek off to a tyre place and lower cost than the drop in service. I had a chat with him about changing the van’s tyres. He told me that they would not normally remove the metal valve stems, so I assume they’d just change the valves. Apparently the mobile units are also trained and equipped for dealing with Tyron bands so I think that when I finally get around to changing the van’s tyres in the next few weeks I’ll give them a try.

[Derek Uzzell]

BruceM - 2020-06-03 3:02 PM

 

...He told me that they would not normally remove the metal valve stems, so I assume they’d just change the valves...

 

If the tyre fitter meant that the clamp-in valve would be left in place on the wheel rim and only the valve’s removable core would be replaced, then (as I said above) this is common practice. It does beg the question, though, as to when the complete valve should be replaced.

 

Martin’s motorhome is 8 years old and just had four new tyres fitted. If the new tyres lasted a further 8 years, the valves would be 16 years old at the next tyre change - would the fitter replace the complete valves then or just the cores? And are the cores that are put in made by a reputable valve manufacturer (like Schrader) or have they been bought for a few pence from an unknown Far Eastern supplier?

 

Schrader and Alligator (the CVV EASY valve) both market snap-in tyre valves designed to cope with really high inflation pressures. These are much simpler and quicker to fit than the metal clamp-in type but don’t seem to have caught on where motorhomes are concerned.

[Will86]

Martin's comment 'pulling' to the left is a harsh one, does he really mean drifting to the left, if so I would consider it quite normal on a left cambered road with new tires and perhaps a top heavy body. if it pulled to the right meaning uphill then that's potentially dangerous.

[Derek Uzzell]

In his original posting Martin said that, after the new tyres had been fitted

 

I noticed a relatively gentle pull to the left for the first time.

 

The camber of UK roads encourages a vehicle to (as you say) drift leftwards down the camber if it is being driven on a straight road and the driver removes their hands from the steering-wheel.

 

An experienced driver should immediately be able to distinguish between camber-induced ‘drifting’ and where the vehicle noticeably ‘wants' to move leftwards and needs to b restrained from doing this by using steering-wheel input to stop it happening.

 

The significant thing is that, before the new tyres were fitted, the “pull to the left” was not present.

[Paul-]

I had new tyres fitted to the car in January by national tyres and they recommended that I had a free tracking test, I excepted the offer and the tracking was out and they showed me by how much, they did the tracking for notalot and the fitted tyres were still cheaper than any other quote for the same tyres.

[Derek Uzzell]

National Tyres & Autocare advertises vehicle steering geometry checking and adjustment as described here

 

https://www.national.co.uk/wheel-alignment

 

The equipment said to be used is the Supertracker STR130RW system

 

https://www.supertracker.com/news/str130rw-aligner-is-available-now

 

but Martin said in his last posting above “...They didn't have a proper setup to arrange for tracking alignment...”. It’s possible that the STR130RW system cannot cope with a vehicle the size of Martin’s motorhome, or the necessary data are not in the system’s database, or there is some other reason the National Tyres outlet that fitted the new tyres were unable to check the motorhome’s wheel alignment.

 

As Martin’s motorhome is now deviating to the left after the new tyres were fitted, and swapping the front tyres side-to-side “...didn't make hardly any difference went returning home”, the likelihoood is that front wheels misalignment is the culprit (Occam’s Spanner Law) but the only way to confirm that would be to have the alignment checked.

[Brian Kirby]

hallii - 2020-06-03 2:51 PM

 

I doubt that National Tyres would do this but... I had the same problem on a car, after some investigation the fitter had jacked the car up under the wishbone suspension arm and had somehow bent the track rod at the same time. Even worse was when another fitter jacked my mini up under the front floor pan, that cost them the repair costs!

H

This thought also occurred to me. If the NTS depot visited doesn't have sufficient height to put the van on a lift (or doesn't have a vehicle lift that would take a van - or doesn't have one at all), they would have to have used trolley jacks or similar. All well and fine, but a trolley jack using the wrong lifting point, especially a bottom "wishbone" suspension member could well cause distortion.

 

I'm also a little surprised that the markings had scrubbed off between depot and home - which may indicate faulty geometry somewhere.

 

To be sure, I think it would be a good idea to get the van into a Fiat "Professional" dealership, for inspection and an alignment check. If there is an alignment problem the tyres will in any case wear prematurely.

 

If damage is found ask the dealership for a report on what they found, and present that to NTS with a request for reimbursement.

[Derek Uzzell]

This link is to the information Steve928 referred to in his posting of 2 June 2020 7:05 AM above

 

https://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/165-new-tyres-and-their-markings/

 

The likelihood of the radial ‘run-out’ markings’ being still visible on Martin’s tyres by the time he returned home from the NTS outlet would depend on the distance driven. In any case if the run-out markings of the tyres that had been fitted to the Carado’s front wheels had indicated that the vehcle might well ‘pull’ to the left, swapping the wheels over should result in the opposite happening. Forget the tyre radial stripes...

 

Martin probably knows what method NTS used when lifting his motorhome and - if so - should be able to say what was done. It wouldn’t surprise me if trolley jacks were used, but there’s no compelling reason to think they were used wrongly in a manner that could cause suspension damage.

 

If there is no suspension damage but the steering geometry is slightly wrong, it won’t matter whether the front wheels are swapped side-to-side or the rear wheels are moved to the motorhome’s front - the vehicle will still ‘pull’ to the left.

 

What is needed is for a competent tyre specialist to check the wheel alignment...

[Will86]

Derek Uzzell - 2020-06-03 6:43 PM

 

The significant thing is that, before the new tyres were fitted, the “pull to the left” was not present.

 

I suggest that if the original tires were seriously worn it would allow a vehicle to roll about with little control, they could also have been worn to counteract any move to the left.

 

Let me add here another interesting piece of tire wear info. I was a long distance rider on a bicycle with solid rubber tires in the UK where there was considerable wear that matched a UK camber, BUT when riding on the continent with UK wear it it was a problem causing a new set of tires to be fitted. When considering Martins original comments there could be far more that we don't know.

[Derek Uzzell]

What is known is that Martin’s 2012 Carado motorhome is left-hand-drive, had Continental VancoCamper tyres as original equipment and had covered just 17,000 miles when the original tyres were replaced by another set of VancoCamper tyres.

 

I’m not a fan of guesswork, but it seems likely that Martin chose to replace the original tyres because of their 8-year age rather than them being excessively worn. My 2015 Rapido has covered roughly the same mileage and has the same specification tyres (albeit Michelin-made not Continental ones). The Rapido’s tyres have not been ‘rotated’ to equalise wear and the front tyres are still well legal (and the tread-wear pattern is not unusual) while its rear tyres are much less worn.

 

Martin bought the Carado in Germany towards the end of 2019 and drove it back to the UK. It may be assumed that, by the time the tyres were replaced, he would have gained sufficient experience driving the motorhome to recognise whether it was behaving peculiarly (eg. "rolling about with little control") or not tracking in a straght line on UK roads.

 

Martin has not said whether he had noticed any unusual wear on the original front tyres. If that had been the case (and as I suggested earlier) it might have pointed to the vehicle’s wheel alignment having been tweaked in the past to compensate for such wear and puting new tyres on it would then produce the leftwards ‘pulling’. But that’s real crystal-ball gazing with a blindfold on...

 

There might be something wrong with the new tyres (butt probably not); there might be something wrong with the suspension (perhaps); or the motorhome’s wheel alignment may just be a bit out.

 

 

 

 

[Agaric]

I had this once, it was a sticky pads issue. As the wheels have been off you never know what's changed.

[paid2travel]

Thanks guys for all your thoughts, tips, advice and own experiences!

 

In reply to some of those, on the first visit to the NTS depot I travelled 30 miles back and both tyres lost roughly 90% of their ‘run-out’ markings, I also remember it was jacked up under the front suspension wishbones and on the second visit under the chassis jacking blocks. I also spun the N/S front wheel (while it was jacked up) to see if there was a tight caliper binding, but it rotated freely enough.

 

The original tyres tread didn’t appear to be worn at all, however, in conversation with the fitter he did say that one of the tyres were slightly worn. I didn’t think much about it at the time as I wasn’t experiencing any wandering to the left so I didn’t pin down which one. The reason I had them changed was mainly due to the MOT station advising me of the age of the tyres after its MOT late last year.

 

The MOT station was Chelston Motorhomes in Wellington who were the only garage nearest to me that could easily cope with vehicles over 6.5 meters so I think the most sensible thing to do next is to get them to do the tracking and see where it takes me.

 

[Hans]

As far my info at the AL-Ko chassis factory which copy the fiat factory, tracking is done whit the wheels on the ground. It is special equipment.

[Derek Uzzell]

paid2travel - 2020-06-05 1:42 PM

 

...I also remember it was jacked up under the front suspension wishbones and on the second visit under the chassis jacking blocks...

 

It’s not good practice to jack under the wishbone, but it should be OK if the mechanic is careful.

 

Using a trolley jack and the designated front jacking point

 

 

will require a good deal of ‘lift’ before the front wheel clears the ground and can be removed - which is probably why the beneath-the-wishbone jacking method is attractive.

 

(I remember a French mechanic jacking up my RWD Transit-based Herald motorhome using a single trolley-jack beneath the centre of the vehicle’s rear-axle bellhousing. The garage floor was rough broken concrete and, with both of the Herald’s rear wheels now well clear of the ground, the mechanic slid on his back under the Herald’s rear-located entrance’s Omni-Step. I thought to myself “If the jack fails or the Herald falls off it you are dead and that would be a nuisance as I’m sure the police would want me to make a witness statement and I want to get back on the road.” Anyway he got away with it...)