I am facing a strange problem with my Kia Carnival. Its rear tyres are wearing off prematurely. At the same time, the front tyres (which one expects to wear off sooner in a heavy front wheel drive car) are not only holding well, but comparatively show no sign of wear.
Let me share a chronological account, which will make it easier to understand the issue faced and solutions applied so far.
Aug '21 - New car purchased.
Sep '21 - First time noticed a missing tread line in both the rear tyres and reported it to Kia dealership.
Nov '21 - 5k inspection. Issue reported again and as a solution wheel alignment was done. Note: Carnival has a rear independent suspension, thus rear wheels need alignment too.
Mar '22 - 10K Service. At this point I had stopped monitoring the tyres thinking the issue to have been solved. But as part of service all four tyres were aligned, balanced and rotated.
Aug '22 - 20k Service. Again all four tyres aligned, balanced and rotated at the dealership as part of the service.
Oct '22 – The car would have done about 24k kms. I was on the highway driving back home from Delhi, when something felt amiss -like the one of the tyres has suffered a puncture. Stopped to check, and found one of the rear tyres to have completely worn off. Note this was at the fag end of the journey and I had already driven the car for about 600 kms that day. Reported the incident to the Kia dealership and on their advice got fresh new tyres at the front and the existing front tyres were put on the rear. Thereafter the tyres were aligned and balanced at the dealership.
The completely worn tyre:
Dec '22 - 30k service. The rear tyres looked to be in not so good shape and on the advice of the dealer just a day before the 30k service appointment got two new tyres. This time the new tyres were put on the rear. Also, as part of the service all four tyres were aligned and balanced. The dealer also checked the rear suspension and ruled out any issue with the suspension. The car's odo reading was about 29.5 k kms.
After the 30k service, I kept a keen eye on the tyres. My gauge was any deformation in the tread design and found none - though I had a suspicion that one of the tread design lines was fading in the rear tyres.
Mar '23 – The car would have completed about 33k kms. I noticed one of the lines (on the outside) of the tread design missing from both the rear tyres after I returned from a outstation trip. Reported to the dealer and contacted Kia directly for the first time. Dealer again checked the alignment and updated it based on some new parameters. I was told their was close communication between the dealer staff and Kia engineers. They asked me to drive another 1k - 2k kms and bring the car back for another evaluation.
The condition of the rear left tyre @33k kms.(Note the missing outer tread line; the inner tread line is visible)
And the right rear @33k. Similar to the left tyre - the outer tread line is gone but the inner one is still visible.
April '23 – On the Thursday of the last week of April, I dropped the care for inspection. According to the GM service at the dealership, the issue was probably solved, and the alignment parameters were also all good. But I was still advised to bring the car back for re-evaluation after driving another 1-2k kms. After getting the car back, I could myself inspect the tyres only a day later (meanwhile the car wasn’t driven). Lo and behold, I found another tread line missing (this time the one on the inside) from both the rear tyres. Please check the pictures below:
The current state of rear left tyre @35.5k kms. Now the inner tread line has worn off too.
Similar to the left rear, the right rear tyre too has lost its inner tread line.
Also please note and as mentioned earlier, the front tyres are spared while the car goes about chewing the rear ones. Please see below the picture of the current state of front tyre. Do note that while the front tyres have done ~11.5 k kms, the rear ones have done just 6k kms.
Current state of 11.5k driven front tyres.
My intention is not to criticize Kia or the dealership in this thread. (I am open to creating another thread for that topic
![Smile](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.png)
) What I am really seeking is advise from the learned members of this forum to help understand/diagnose the root cause of the problem.
The dealership has ruled out any fault in the rear suspension. The rear alignment is also ok – the parameters are all under the range provided by Kia. Typically, the dealership shares a printout of the before and after alignment parameters and I haven't really ever noticed the parameters to be that off of the desired range. So, if the suspension is ok and the alignment too is correct, then what else can or should be checked?