wheels, nuts, studs and spacers - help!

[Pillock]

i know it's not retro in any way but you guys are so helpful, and it may be useful to someone else

our mondeo keeps shredding tyres. it's got 17" wheels on it, proper ford ones from a mondeo st200, with the 225/17R45 tyres that they originally wore. however at the front there seems to be minimal clearance between the tyre, and the spring cup on the strut. You can just get your finger between the two, and this is the exact spot that the tyre wears through. First time was at 85mph but i heard it shredding so caught it whilst it still had air in. However it's just done it again for Claire, thankfully at low speed, on the opposite tyre.

Now I'm thinking there should be zero movement in the strut below the spring cup and there should only be very slight variations in tyre height due to acceration/braking. The tyres weren't going flat so the sidewalls should be pretty strong on 45-series tyres. I can't think of any other way that the tyre would, at random, suddenly meet the strut and shred on two occasions on two sides. But it's still got me spooked so i need to get more space in there. It's not a gradual thing either, the tyre I put on the other side after it did it the first time hasn't got a mark on it at all on the inside shoulder, and I checked them both thoroughly two weeks ago.

Can I use spacers, given that the mondeo has studs in the hub with nuts to hold the wheel on, instead of bolts into the hub? Normally I'd just get longer bolts but obviously i'd need longer studs on this - are they part of the brake disk or what? Or can I just get some maybe 1/4" spacers just to put a bit of error margin in there, without needing longer studs?

Might just drop down to 215/45R17 on the front (i already need one tyre, didn't want to have to buy two but safety first....) and hope that clears it ok. it's just it's been running 225's for at least a year!

[PhoenixC]

Are these the multi spoke wheels that the ST`s had like this



if so there shouldnt be a clearance issue.

Are there any marks on the strut to indicate it has been catching
If it is catching are the wheel bearings okay?

Is it the sidewall that is going or the tread area as mondeos can be prone for wearing the inside edge particularly if the wishbone bushes are gone and bigger wheels/tyres fitted.

[Pillock]

piccie didn't load but they are multispokes from the first range of ST's - can't remember if it was ST24 or ST200. But multispoke rather than the nasty 4-spoke ones.

I can't see anything on the strut at all, the first one to go did leave a clean patch but that one stripped a load of canvas off which was whipping around so i'd expect that to rub some dirt off. But no paint missing from the strut, no shiny metal like you'd expect from contact with a tyre that has wire and canvas sticking out!

wheel bearing has just been replaced on that side but fairly sure there was no wear on it after replacement, certainly the garage would have noticed most of the shoulder missing. It's worn right on the corner, the tread area but the part as it goes into the sidewall so there's no actual tread on that part.

Just found these spacers - cgi.ebay.co.uk/Wheel-Spacers-Ford-Fitting_W0QQitemZ220030817274 - but they look bloody dangerous! solves the problem of too short studs to use circular spacers though. Anyone had experience with them? Safe? These are the ones I'm more used to seeing but i'm not sure I have 10mm of spare stud.... cgi.ebay.co.uk/Alloy-Wheel-Spacers-Suit-Ford-10mm-Thick-Spacers_W0QQitemZ120035668753

[kerbsidemotors]

I'd agree with Phoenix. Check for any play or wear and have a look to see if they have been rubbing on anything before messing about with spacers etc. Because if anything is worn and you stick spacers on the symptoms will be worse as the hub will have more leverage on the suspension.

[Granadaman72]

scary!, like you say the distance between the spring cup and the centre line thru the wheel/hub should be fixed, you could try putting a lump of blu-tak etc on the spring cup near the wheel and bouncing the suspension up and down to see if it hits, but i would have thought the tyre would have left a mark where it was catching, my mate had a similar experience with his car, he found a 10x10mm groove cut into his tyre on the edge down to the cords, but it was only on half the tyre, no witness marks on the suspension/chassis and the wheels(alloys) had been on for 12mths, the wheel/tyre was completly round and not buckled the car had been on ramps(mates a mechanic) numerous times for various jobs but the groove had never been spotted before, needless to say new tyre required but the only explanation we could think of was the tyre had been like that when fitted, photo,

[rmad]

pillock said:

Just found these spacers - cgi.ebay.co.uk/Wheel-Spacers-Ford-Fitting_W0QQitemZ220030817274 - but they look bloody dangerous! solves the problem of too short studs to use circular spacers though. Anyone had experience with them? Safe? These are the ones I'm more used to seeing but i'm not sure I have 10mm of spare stud.... cgi.ebay.co.uk/Alloy-Wheel-Spacers-Suit-Ford-10mm-Thick-Spacers_W0QQitemZ120035668753

Those look like the special nuts that you use with spacers...they're not the spacers themselves. It's scary to thing that they may have been used as spacers!

^ You put the bolts on and then slide the spacer over.

[DerbyDan]

This is very worrying i'm sure

Were both the tyres that this has happened to both of the same make? A mate of mine had a complete set of tyres replaced F.O.C under warranty/safety re-call (I think they were Dunlop SPs) On some tyres fitted to optional extra 20" wheels on his Audi - he was well chuffed since the old ones were on there way out & new ones were going to be ££££! It turned out the failure that was the result of a manufacturing fault & indeed had happened with a tyre on my friend's Audi sounds very similar to whats happening with your tyres? It maybe worth checking with the tyre manufacture to see if there is a known fault?

It may also be worth checking that you have the same tyre size fitted as those that would have come std on the Mondeo ST - though 225 x 45 sounds about right. It would figure that if you were fitting wheels intended for a Mondeo (abeit a sportier model perhaps) Would fit on a Mondeo

[bstardchild]

nadaman72 said:

my mate had a similar experience with his car, he found a 10x10mm groove cut into his tyre on the edge down to the cords, but it was only on half the tyre, no witness marks on the suspension/chassis and the wheels(alloys) had been on for 12mths, the wheel/tyre was completly round and not buckled the car had been on ramps(mates a mechanic) numerous times for various jobs but the groove had never been spotted before, needless to say new tyre required but the only explanation we could think of was the tyre had been like that when fitted, photo,

Thats been rubbing on a suspension component - my money would be on the roll bar. Seen it before and you don't hear it above the noise of the PAS pump on ful lock

Strut clearance with wider wheels is never normally that much of a problem but clearances on full lock are the real killer.......

[TwincamGTi]

Pillock

I think for a better deduction would it be better if a picture of a damaged/scuffed tyre of yours could be posted up.

I too wounder if damage is being done to tyre from full lock turning

ST models had slightly differenet suspension to allow for bigger wheels (don't ask me how or what, in much same way as XR2 had different adjustments to steering to allow for bigger wheels etc... much to the horror of any lad who stuck XR2 'pepperpot' wheels onto his 950 Popular plus)

[Dorset_Clive]

If you do decide to go for spacers, please make sure you get ones that fit!! Someone on the Rover forums forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?t=148511 recently was talking about fitting spacers that were smaller diameter than the wheel hub :-0

[Pillock]

Right. piccie time.

This is the mess it made of the tyre. Caution, not for the faint hearted!


This is the front tyre on the other side, which has the same tyre-strut gap. Photo is with camera inside wheelarch, from front, with full lock ok.


This is with the spare on, which is a standard 165/65R15. Bigger gap but not by miles...


As you can see the closest part to the strut is really quite a way into the tread, at the top. This is the bit i'd expect to hit if there was for some reason upwards movement of the wheel/hub in relation to the strut. However the tyre is worn more on the sidewall, as if the top of the wheel was moving towards the car.

Both tyres were the same make (Continental) but It definately appears to be a wear issue rather than a fault with the tyre. It also doesn't look like geometry, there's a hard line worn in rather than just scrubbing on the road.

Can't find anything else in the way to catch on, most of the stuff there is plastic like the undertray, and the inner liner, so would show wear. I think it could well just be the different ST200 suspension has more clearance. Might drop down to 215's at the front, and/or use some thin spacers. Think the 30mm ones would be overkill. I did later find some spacers of the nut type that included the sleeve as illustrated, these look much safer

[PhoenixC]

There is no way that is hitting the strut with that amount of clearance. Try jacking the whole front of the car up then putting a load under both wheels to support most of the weight of the car on the wheels. Then get underneath the car and get someone else to move the steering from lock to lock and see if anywhere is close to catching.

I have seen wear on mondeos that was similar to that, that was down to bushes, but it wasnt quite as bad and there was no line/groove on the tyre. Half of the inside edge of the tyre was down to canvas the rest of the tyre had 4-5mm tread you never used to get that much wear on a mk1 escort or sunbeam running loads of neggy camber.

[froggy]

first thing is to check that the subframe is fitted correctly as the majority of places just drop one side of the subframe to replace the clutch then refit without using the proper dowels which can make the car crab slightly and cause some scrubbing.running such low profile tyres with a much stiffer sidewall any geometry issues will be much rougher on the tyres for instance i regularly have to put bottom ball joints and front tyres on an e class merc running 19" wheels as the geometry is set up to include the deflection of the 16" tyres it should have on it, i think you will find that the camber that is present on the strut and "absorbed" by the 15" 65 series tyre is now causing all your problems
I'm not a tyre expert but i do run an mot station and have seen this quite often .