[ashis89]

To add to rrsteer, we assume the technicians at the service centre are ill-trained and their machines are badly caliberated. My experience with service centre has been the opposite - perfect handling at any speeds. But the one time I did the alignment after tyre change at this big and famous tyre store in HSR Bangalore, I got slight left pull. This shop used some road force balancing machine and charged 2.5k for it, iirc.

I have visited 4 different Kia service centres across 3 different cities so far. My experience has been consistent so I ask them to do the balancing instead of me looking for another shop outside.

[zeng]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

Thanks bkc. I am beginning to think its a manufacturing defect with the Kia Carnival in India.


I think it is silly to assume that the dealer/service advisor would be so clueless so as to not know that the vehicle on which they are trained also needs a rear alignment. Its really surprising to me but I keep getting this advice to get the rear tyres aligned. It was also the first advice I received from a D-Bhpian in the Carnival thread. I am a T-Bhp member after all. Surely, would know the bare basics of the car I drive.

Until and unless the present set of wheel alignment numbers are ALTERED from its present values in a specific manner, replacing ALL suspension components or suspension system overhaul or what not would NOT help with the abnormally high tyre wear rate.

[bravo6]

Originally Posted by ashis89

To add to rrsteer, we assume the technicians at the service centre are ill-trained and their machines are badly caliberated. My experience with service centre has been the opposite - perfect handling at any speeds. But the one time I did the alignment after tyre change at this big and famous tyre store in HSR Bangalore, I got slight left pull. This shop used some road force balancing machine and charged 2.5k for it, iirc.

I have visited 4 different Kia service centres across 3 different cities so far. My experience has been consistent so I ask them to do the balancing instead of me looking for another shop outside.

Same thing happened to me - I tried a few places, but always ended up pulling to one side. Only Toyota could properly align the wheels for me. Turns out the values in the outside databases were wrong, and only Toyota had the correct values.

Originally Posted by zeng

Until and unless the present set of wheel alignment numbers are ALTERED from its present values in a specific manner, replacing ALL suspension components or suspension system overhaul or what not would NOT help with the abnormally high tyre wear rate.

Depends on whether the database has wrong values (should have been caught by now as more Kia officials involved, and ALL Carnivals would be affected)
OR
A batch of bad suspension components made to production (only a fraction of the vehicles would be affected)

[Kanboy]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

I am facing a strange problem with my Kia Carnival. Its rear tyres are wearing off prematurely.

Hey rrSteer,
This problem is a KIA Carnival THING, I have 2 friends who bought a Carnival each back to back. 1 Limousine and 2nd Base Premium Variant.
Both were bought in the year 2020-21. Both face the same problem and it's because of the camber settings.

My friend who bought the Premium Variant utilizes the Carnival quite a bit on all sorts of roads. Around @ 22k km he contacted me and informed me his rear right tyre had gone completely bald from one side and was astonished about it's premature uneven wear and tear. We bought an used tyre with similar wear and took the car for alignment, balancing and rotation. The front and rear camber and toe settings were checked, and they were completely out. Reset the Toe settings to prescribed limits, but we could not reset the camber as there was nothing wrong found in the suspension, and it cannot be set like in most germans. (How we knew in the next para) and we didn't want to do a jugaad (sticking a bolt in the shocker base mount) on a new car.

Before this my friend had shown this problem to a Kia Technician in their service centre, who informed him that Kia had balanced the Carnival for better road mannerisms and they can't reconfigure the rear camber, and this was normal in the Carnival because of its size, nothing to be worried about. My friend then used the car as is with the pre owned tyre and at 32k km changed all 4 tyres with new ones, and still is a Happy owner. (Pictures attached, with alignment of the front)

The friend who bought the Limousine Variant didn't rotate his tyres at all and had to change his rear set with uneven wear and tear @20ish k km. Even his camber settings were completely out.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

...Kia Carnival. Its rear tyres are wearing off prematurely.

It is due to one of few things:
1. If the OE rims were changed, and the offset is not as per OE specifications;
2. The dataset for the Carnival's wheel alignment is wrongly stored in the alignment machine that the dealer is using;
3. The aligner is out of calibration;
4. An utterly incompetent technician is operating the aligner equipment;
5. Bent suspension components after accidentally crashing through a pothole.

Can you share the printout of the last alignment done?

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

It is due to one of few things:

Can you share the printout of the last alignment done?

Attached is the print out for the alignment done in Feb. Thereafter one was done in March & another last week. Don't have the printouts for them.

[zeng]

There you are, there are 'excessive' (to me) individual rear toe-in's of +0°24' that is causing the rear tyres accelerated wear rate phenomenon, never mind they are greens and within oem specification range.

I would further speculate relatively short rear tyre life for the majority of Kia Carnivals that stays within and complies with this oem rear toe specification range.

Kia service centres and dealers would have their hands full with short rear tyre life complaints when sticking to this specification range.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

Attached is the print out for the alignment done in Feb. Thereafter one was done in March & another last week. Don't have the printouts for them.

Attachment 2446764

Can you please repost it with the parameters on the left being visible? Can't read many of the items.

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by zeng

There you are, there are 'excessive' (to me).

I would further speculate relatively short rear tyre life for the majority of Kia Carnivals.

Kia service centres and dealers would have their hands full with short rear tyre life complaints when sticking to this specification range.

In this thread only, apart from me three others have reported excessive rear wear and shortened tyre life. What will be your suggestion to correct this?

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Can you please repost it with the parameters on the left being visible? Can't read many of the items.

Thanks SS-Traveller. I am re-attaching the document pictures.

One is from Dec' 22 (30k service) & the other from Feb'23

[MaddyCrew]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

In this thread only, apart from me three others have reported excessive rear wear and shortened tyre life. What will be your suggestion to correct this?



Thanks SS-Traveller. I am re-attaching the document pictures.

One is from Dec' 22 (30k service) & the other from Feb'23

Attachment 2446800

Attachment 2446801

I agree with one of the observers above - that the toe settings seem to be excessive. The condition of your tyres certainly point towards a 'toe' related wear than a 'camber' related wear. The following images should give you a fair view of what is (probably) going on

[Tgo]

I can take any argument from Kia attributing shorter life of tyres to the vehicle’s weight BUT the tyre wear has to be even.

They are being lazy or have lack of direction or intent to fix the issue. The +/- 0.02’ error which might look like they adjusted something, I have seen that happen on these machines even when the technician is not touching it. After an adjustment when everything sinks in.

Also, if you do the alignment with a de shaped tyre there are going to be forces to begin with. Same thing with tyre pressure, that has to be set before you start the alignment.

I remember, in the early days of our Duster (2WD), we had similar issues with uneven wear on the front tyres. It was on the very first set that came from the factory. Uneven wear detected at 17k km which they weren’t able to correct till 22k km after multiple attempts. The dealer blamed it on MRF and a tyre defect, but we took it to an MRF authorised tyre shop and they gave a note that there wasn’t any manufacturing defect on the tyres.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/offic...ml#post3338035 (Renault Duster : Official Review)

The dealer gave a goodwill warranty and approved 3 new tyres and along with the spare put on a set of 4 new tires and did the alignment properly and this gave a life of 40k km. Of course the dealer never said they made a mistake. I believe they were just correcting alignment on deformed tires because, who would give the go ahead for putting on new ones?

Although we were made to believe we had uneven wear issues because of the tire OEM, it was sorted out and gave the usual expected life of 40k after things were done correctly and on a fresh set. The reason we never switched back to MRF was tyre humming noise at 40-60 kmph which was a totally different issue.

Please do not be complacent or take it as an agreeable shortcoming of the vehicle which gives you an amazing ownership experience otherwise.

[MT_Hyderabad]

Wish GOI ban Carnival sale to curb pollution emanating from the rear tyres! (at least till the time Kia engineers solve this puzzle)

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by MT_Hyderabad

Wish GOI ban Carnival sale to curb pollution emanating from the rear tyres! (at least till the time Kia engineers solve this puzzle)

Oh what a thought!
To give you the good news - GOI intervention is not required, Carnival sales have been stopped.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/offic...ml#post5533701 (Kia Carnival : Official Review)

[bravo6]

Shouldn't the camber for both left and right rear tyres be the same? Seems they set it asymmetrically, which compounded into the right tyre going out of max permitted range in 2 months.

Also they seem to be experimenting with different Camber angles.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by bravo6

Shouldn't the camber for both left and right rear tyres be the same? Seems they set it asymmetrically, which compounded into the right tyre going out of max permitted range in 2 months.

Also they seem to be experimenting with different Camber angles.

Originally Posted by MaddyCrew

I agree with one of the observers above - that the toe settings seem to be excessive. The condition of your tyres certainly point towards a 'toe' related wear than a 'camber' related wear.

Originally Posted by rrsteer

In this thread only, apart from me three others have reported excessive rear wear and shortened tyre life. What will be your suggestion to correct this?

Originally Posted by zeng

There you are, there are 'excessive' (to me) individual rear toe-in's of +0°24' that is causing the rear tyres accelerated wear rate phenomenon, never mind they are greens and within oem specification range.

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

It is due to one of few things:
1. If the OE rims were changed, and the offset is not as per OE specifications;
2. The dataset for the Carnival's wheel alignment is wrongly stored in the alignment machine that the dealer is using;
3. The aligner is out of calibration;
4. An utterly incompetent technician is operating the aligner equipment;
5. Bent suspension components after accidentally crashing through a pothole.

Can you share the printout of the last alignment done?

It seems pretty obvious that the toe values being used are excessive. All this reminds me of early days with my Hexa where nobody could get the alignment right. TASS failed, as did my neighbourhood tire shop. The values mentioned in the manual didn’t keep her pointing straight and true and the parameters for sister cars Aria and Safari Storme also did not work out. Nobody knew the correct toe values for Hexa. I finally took the car to the flagship MRF store in town, where the senior technician performed a manual alignment with a string and weights. This sorted the problem to 95%, with partially worn tires. These MRF guys then somehow procured the correct toe values for Hexa, which then fixed the problem completely.

Carnival too seems to be a perfect candidate for manual wheel alignment. You guys have already spent so much money and suffered heartache in a loosing effort at the dealer’s. Best move on, find a good tire shop and have things done the old fashioned way.