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Tyres Inner tyre destroyed..... Michelin PS5 ~9500 miles

SplanK

New Member
Nthusiast
Jul 9, 2024
25
18
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North West, UK
Hi all,

I'm after a bit of guidance on my i30n FL DCT.

I've just had the front tyres replaced. They were Michelin PS5 and had done around 9,500 miles. Tread depth was approximately 2 mm on the inner grooves and 2.5 mm on the outer, so I felt I'd pretty much got my money's worth out of them but without going excessively close to the legal limit.

I'd been keeping a close eye on the tread for the last month or so as I knew they were getting close to replacement. What I didn't expect was for the tyre fitter to show me the inside shoulder of the tyres once they'd come off.

As you can see from the photos, the inner shoulder had split badly, with one tyre split for around three-quarters of its circumference. Looking at them now, I was probably only a handful of miles away from a blowout, which is a bit unsettling given I do enjoy stretching the N's legs on some familiar country roads.

In hindsight, I clearly wasn't checking the inner shoulder properly. To be fair, it's a difficult area to inspect unless you get right down on the floor or turn the steering to full lock, but a very useful lesson learned and noted for the future!

What's interesting is that the car had its service only 3,000 miles ago (February) and nothing was mentioned about the tyres, so whatever has happened seems to have developed relatively quickly.

These are the third set of front tyres the car has had. The first two sets were the OEM Pirelli P Zeros, and although they wore out normally, they never showed damage like this. Before the i30 N I also ran several sets of Michelin PS4S on my Megane 4 RS without seeing anything similar.

Car has done 18,500 miles, no track days, just spirited road driving on some B-roads. Tyre pressure always kept at recommended cold value and never driven on under-inflated.

The tyre fitter suggested it could be worth checking the wheel alignment, or possibly a worn suspension bush, although the car has only covered 18.5k miles.

I'm aware that these cars can wear the inside edges of the front tyres, but this seems quite different from normal inner-edge wear?

Has anyone else experienced anything similar with PS5s or on an i30 N? Does this look like an alignment/suspension issue, heat-related shoulder failure, or something else? I'm planning to get a full four-wheel alignment done, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone has seen this before.

<ChatGPT assisted with writing this post - mostly because I suck with grammar and spelling!>
 

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Possibly to much camber!
Possibly to much pressure!

Which one was on your RHD drivers side?
 
I dont recall what the fitter told me, but what I do recall is the RHD Drivers side being less worn on tread than the passenger/gearbox side so I would suggest (and certainly re-looking at the photos) that the tyre with the 3/4 split was passenger/gearbox side and the one just starting was the drivers side.
 
So this is because left-hand traffic, in Germany we have right-hand traffic! Blasting through circles.

So on right-hand traffic countries it's normal that the passengers side (right) is always worn a little more, even when the alignment is fine.

In case of left-hand traffic, the passengers side is of course left.

The softer the compound of your tires is, the more you drive fast, the more this effect is.

Just asking to elevate if your alignment could be that bad or okay-good.

But being pretty sure you're driving with to much pressure, or to much toe-out if so you need more toe-in.

With to much pressure on harsh corner blasting, the tire used to slip n skip more so you grind it more off. With less pressure the the tire has more rolling resistance, but is also more planar. Resulting in more grip and worn more consistent over the hole tires surface.
 
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I'm not sure I believe that statement above - in my experience - having scrubbed the outer shoulder of many tyres from going round roundabouts too fast, that's where the wear is typically not the inner edge.

Agree that the nearside (passenger) tyre is normally the worst in terms of wear though - as it bears the brunt of the edge of road damage + more roundabouts + more camber on that side of the road itself etc.

Overinflated would tend to wear the middle of the tyre and leave the shoulders with more tread - not just the inner edge.

So to me this sounds like it is suspension related - as it's both sides of the car not one it "implies" it's a symmetrical issue rather than a single part failure - so more along alignment; camber or toe-out being likely causes.

Has the car been lowered?
 
Thanks
Yeah, i'm aware that the passenger side will always wear quicker. I tend to keep a closer eye on tread depth first on that side, but otherwise in this case that the ware is mostly consistent across both sides.

Pressure, I always run aim to run the recommended 38psi cold. Only over winter where temperatures drop they may run a little lower until I get chance to top them up but its never by a huge amount and not for long. I dare say the split has been done in the warmer months as nothing untoward was picked up at the last service.

Monitoring the pressures since shows they start at 38 cold, and rise to 42 after a good run which is consistent when I have previously looked and consistent with the general guidance of 'the 4psi rule' for non track driving.

The car is completely standard other than switching to Michelin PS5 over the OEM Pirelli. The car also drives and handles fine! No pulling or drifting to one side and is not 'skittish'.

The Pirelli tyres I ran down to a similar tread depth previously on the N, and same with PS4S's on my previous Megane 4RS, and both were subject to similar style of driving, yet didn't split like this despite running then down to ~2mm!

Given this is the first time i've worn down a set of PS5's, I also wonder if this could also be a 'particular tyre on a particular car' issue as well and running down this particular tyre closer to the legal limit than previous tyres. Although given how many other N owners are likely to run this tyre, I would have thought we would have seen that play out before now?

Granted, something may have changed such as the geometry of the suspension recently which could be accelerating the ware in the inside so will go and take for it to be checked soon regardless.

Looking at the photos again, its clear I completely missed the fact that the very inside tread has more or less competently gone which should have been my warning. I have noted this for the future rather than just checking the depth of the center bands - that is very much on me and very much noted for the future regardless. That, and giving the inside side wall a proper look.
 
Overinflated would tend to wear the middle of the tyre and leave the shoulders with more tread - not just the inner edge.

You are right, but keep in mind overinflated with that amount of camber resulting in driving most of the time especially on straights that your are using inner shoulders-middle!

The pics are not the best, but you can see how good his outer shoulders are.
 
Talking about PSI cold should be more like 33 going hot to max 36.

I tested quite often on serpentines in the Alps or on b-roads were I really going to the limits. Different cars & tires UHP & semis, In my experience it's always the same. Even on warm to hot tires, with to much pressure tires are more direct but really tend to oversteer a lot more and faster even with LSD and LSD actually working on them. Then reducing the the pressure, it goes more indirect of course the feeling is a bit or a lot worse but you learn to handle it.
But the important thing is you feel immediately that the whole tire surface is gripping a lot more on the tarmac, that the point of overdriving the tires is further.

An other point is, using more surface means less heat on inner shoulders, because these are relived due fact more are helps also gripping. Tire of course still get hot, but more overall and the wear is better spreaded.