Hi, I am new to this forum but now totally frustrated with my Qubo.

December 2013 I had new tyres fitted after my Qubo went in for the top mount remedy.


To cut a long story short - my original set of tyres lasted 18000 miles


After the remedy work my next set lasted about 7433 miles, these were changed in December 2013.

As of 4 months and 4000 miles later - the front tyres need changing again.

I am not sure what Fiat have done but there is something wrong with the Fiat Qubo and it seems they don't care about excessive tyre wear. Apparently it is the roads and my driving style that has changed, according to their email when I complained in December.

I have had this car since new, it will be 4 years old this year.

Thank you and I hope Fiat take this matter seriously since my email to them this morning.


It seems other owners have also suffered this problem looking around the web (hence joining here), please join in and share your experiences.

Thank you!!

Hi zeldan64,
Welcome to the wonderful world of the Qubist/Fiorinoist......Re tyre wear, it can be a problem, depends though on a lot of factors, quality of tyres fitted, driving style, pot holes and speed humps. (very important) tracking, tyre pressures, e.t.c.. My 1st set, original fitment did best part 20,000, next set (cheapo's), 6,000. Just got rid on them and shod the beast with expensive rubber which I hope will last, have also arranged to have wheels swapped rear to front & front to rear once a year, to even out the wear.
Minor problem really.........I can live with it because the rest of the package is so good.
Cheers Qube O.

My local garage has been over the last few months been and successfully so far cured the tyre wear that i was getting on the inner edges.
He basically ignored fiats tracking settings, he kept adjusting the tracking [tow out] until the wear disappeared.
This was carried out on a new set of front tyres, so that the inner wear could be spotted clearer.
The tyres are now about 4000 miles old and are wearing correctly.
Bearing in mind i have 17'' wheels with 205-45 tyres on, and so the wear was ever worse than on a standard wheel and tyre.
LUIGI

My last car was a Bipper 1.4HDi manual with standard 15" steel wheels. The OE tyres went for upwards of 20,000 miles before change. The next, "budget" tyres went for around 15/16000 miles. So you're not getting anything like the correct mileage from your car. As a matter of interest, when I sold the Bipper at 40,000 miles, the rears still had around 5mm of tread- I'm not sure that switching fronts/rears is a good idea, you just end up changing 4 tyres rather than 2, just leave the rears and keep changing the front driving/steering tyres.

My present Qubo Dualogic Mjet has just gone beyond 12000 miles on 195/55r16 OE tyres. I guess there's about 2.5/3 mm tread left, enough I hope to see out the summer and I'll replace before winter

zeldan64 said:

Hi, I am new to this forum but now totally frustrated with my Qubo.

December 2013 I had new tyres fitted after my Qubo went in for the top mount remedy.


To cut a long story short - my original set of tyres lasted 18000 miles


After the remedy work my next set lasted about 7433 miles, these were changed in December 2013.

As of 4 months and 4000 miles later - the front tyres need changing again.

I am not sure what Fiat have done but there is something wrong with the Fiat Qubo and it seems they don't care about excessive tyre wear. Apparently it is the roads and my driving style that has changed, according to their email when I complained in December.

I have had this car since new, it will be 4 years old this year.

Thank you and I hope Fiat take this matter seriously since my email to them this morning.


It seems other owners have also suffered this problem looking around the web (hence joining here), please join in and share your experiences.

Thank you!!

Click to expand...

hi i had the same on a 2013 qubo at 5800 miles bald tyres down to cloth ,try fiat qubo suspension snapping , you can see the problems i am having , fiat won't even talk to me >
hope you get sorted soon
andy

Thank you all for your comments.


I did email Fiat in December when I had the tyres replaced as I felt that 7000 odd miles was not acceptable. The reply I got implied that it was my driving style that had changed etc. etc. and not a fault of the vehicle

When it went in for it's annual service in 2013, I was told that the strut top mounts needed upgrading because of the issue (book it in again) and was told you get used to the knocking so probably didn't feel/hear it - when I collected the car after the service I felt & heard the knocking although I didn't experience this before so not sure what the dealership did to make it worse before fixing the issue.

After speaking to Fiat (Italy) yesterday when they phoned me, I was told that the email sent to me in December said I should take the vehicle to the dealership, re-reading the email, it actually says I could take it to the dealership if I had any concerns. As I didn't have any concerns at the time as Fiat had implied it was me at fault I had no reason to take the vehicle back - according to the tyre place my tracking was fine.

I emailed Fiat yesterday purely to reply to that December email and to tell them that 4000 miles is unacceptable so it is obviously not my driving. I was going to contact the dealership yesterday after I sent the email to book it in but again Fiat got in there first and had phoned the garage to see if I had been in since December which they happily told me I hadn't.

It seems that Fiat are happy to blame the customer rather than their vehicle, but thinking back the vehicle drove far better before they twiddled with their spanners.

The vehicle is nearly 4 years old, it has done 29485 miles, I avoid pot holes and go slowly over any speed bumps I encounter (perhaps 1 a month). I do not speed or race around corners and rarely drive above 70 mph on motorways.


The front driver side tyre is at cloth on the inside which I discovered on the weekend after driving 300 miles to the south east UK. It was fine prior to this as I have been keeping an eye on them ever since the low miles from the last pair.

The vehicle also decided to really shake the steering wheel as we travelled south east which I put down to the lorry tracks on the motorway as it only happened twice up hill on the inside lane at about 62 mph. Something I have never experienced before - not even on old vehicles with bad tracking.

Ok, was not going to reply but here goes:
History: I have run heavy, occasionally powerful front wheel drive Saloons for many years (Mitsubishi, Skoda, Renault, Toyota) doing 15-25 thousand a year. Typically front tryes lasted 12-15 thousand (a bit less on the Laguna) and hardly ever replaced a rear pair.
If, after a change of tyre, there was any kind of vibration had them re-balanced.
Never, ever took up the suggestion to "best get the tracking checked gov" as frankly don't trust them or the equipment. Never had un-even wear.

So what about the Qubo then? Well having read here about potential problems I checked the new 7mm tyres on the car (it has done 21,000 with a previous owner, 95Hp version). After a bit over 1000 miles they still show an even 7mm. If they were wearing at all badly that would show by now.
So - given some comments here - I would suggest there is a weak bush in the suspension which fails due to quality issues and a jolt. This has nothing to do with tracking. If I ever thought there was a problem I would have the wheels off the floor and very severely check for any play. Then maybe have the tracking checked at 2 or 3 places on a day when they are not busy - or have the doors open to arctic weather (why to even new garages always have to have the doors open - so unprofessional?).
Does this chime with any other experience?

Andydiver,


Thank you for you post, I have been monitoring these tyres for wear and nothing out of the ordinary over the last 4 months has caused me any concern.


I do not do a lot of miles and hardly any motorway driving and any odd noises are always noted - if I drove constantly all the time I can understand that noises would become background noises and not heard.

It wasn't until Saturday that I experienced the above issue (wild steering wheel wobble at 62 mph) but put it down to the dents in the road caused by slow moving lorry's going up hill. When we arrived at the destination and I got out of the vehicle I noticed the wear to the drivers side tyre - it looked like it had been dragged.

As this wasn't like this in the week, nor did it show any signs of odd wear I was gobsmacked to say the least. Would the tyre have worn like that in the few hundred miles I had just covered, was the violently shaking steering wheel not caused by the channels carved out by lorrys.


I am not a mechanic and as I was in the middle of nowhere on a Saturday evening I did what I went to do and drove home the following morning. 1st thing Monday I contacted Fiat about the issue - as I said in a previous post and as others have said - Fiat blame the roads or the driver not any failing or failed component. On all the vehicles I have owned over the last 30 years of driving I have never experienced anything like this, not even on old worn out rust buckets with damaged suspension bushes.

Hi Again,

My comments on tracking relate to cars which (to my knowledge as they were never bought new) never had a spanner to them.

Your situation is somewhat different due to the work Fiat have done to the bushes etc - something which you say did affect the handling and appears to have lead to your current situation.

Once a garage has done any suspension work then I would brace myself for a period of "fine tuning" while the garages chase out their own measurement error.

Your issue sounds much worse than that - I wish you luck - just remember that it is a decent car and all things can be fixed if you try to stay patient!

So this must be somewhat urgent for you to fix? Perhaps try an independent (any of the tyre places), speak to the manager, get someone to have a look with the wheels off the ground. They won't charge unless they do some work by agreement. If your Fiat dealer is close enough try them too,

Good luck!

Andydiver,


Thanks, I understand.


I have phoned Fiat as not heard back from HQ, and was given a date to take the vehicle in - 24th April. This was totally unacceptable as I would have to have the tyres changed prior to going and they would not see how they sat on the vehicle etc. plus any movement caused by the tyre fitters removing the wheels could cause other issues.


Maybe I am being a little OTT, but 2 sets of front tyres in 16 months and 11300 miles is not a joy.

I had expensive Goodyear tyres put on and after just rechecking the mileage I got 8004 miles out of this set (January - December 2013), December I had budgets put on since then I have done around 4052 miles (which the majority of these miles have been motorway).

Something has changed since the strut top mounts have been done. I would expect around 18000 miles out of a set of tyres. I was not advised to take the vehicle back after any settling in of the work that had been carried out and when the tyres were changed in December - tyre wear was not due to tracking.

Anyway, I can now take the vehicle in on Thursday 17th April and I will stay and watch. I will post the results here.


It is a great vehicle and I changed from the Fiat Idea to this as it gave a little more room for the camping gear. It is just a shame that this has happened and dampened the Qubo spirit.

So I took the Qubo to the Dealership last Thursday and the first thing they said - 'It's the tracking'.


With that they hooked up the tracking equipment and took their measurements - and it was out by 1 degree & 10 seconds.

The tyres were changed and then the tracking realigned. I watched the whole process in the garage (stood right next to the mechanic), I asked questions, tried to wobble anything that the wheels were connected to and the mechanic did the same.


I couldn't fault the dealership and the mechanic was thorough in checking all parts of the suspension etc. as I watched.

One thing I have noticed now since this has been done is that I have to hold the steering wheel at around 35 - 40 minutes (clock face) to stop it pulling left into the curb. This only seems to happen on a cambered road, even a small camber. If I drive in the middle it seems to behave.

I was not charged for the tracking or any labour time and I feel the garage in question did an excellent job. They were checking the vehicle over for around 2-3 hours and they advised me to bring the car back within 6 weeks (or sooner if I do a little more mileage than usual) so they can check for any problems which can be identified & rectified before any serious tyre wear is encountered.

Sounds like a positive transaction. Mine has never noticeably followed a camber yet. It sounds as though you have a sensible plan in place to sort out any remaining tweaks and checks. Thanks for providing an update!

Mine used to pull horribly to the left and would eat front tyres regularly. I had the tracking done at elite tyres in Rainham, Essex, and the tech there ignored the factory settings completely and set the front alignment up with less neg camber and toe out. The tyres now look to be wearing more evenly, it doesn't pull to the left, and handles so much better now.

envy said:

Mine used to pull horribly to the left and would eat front tyres regularly. I had the tracking done at elite tyres in Rainham, Essex, and the tech there ignored the factory settings completely and set the front alignment up with less neg camber and toe out. The tyres now look to be wearing more evenly, it doesn't pull to the left, and handles so much better now.

Click to expand...

Thats the way do get the tracking done, and the same as what i did
LUIGI

Hi, so I guess what we need is for as many people as possible to post settings as they find one which work. Would like to think that they will agree. . .

No amount of tracking will solve this!!
What the whole problem is, when you remove the shocker to replace a top mount or spring you loosen/remove the shocker lower bolts (two 10/12mm bolts) although they are "fixed holes" not elongated like VAG vehicles errors in camber can occur, when I did my springs you could move the wheel in and out and tip the wheel forward and back by A LOT! so although the tracking is bang on the wheels could not be centred (running true) or too much camber. What you need to do is get it proper 4wheel aligned to set the front wheels centred and the correct camber.

It can also affect the rear wheel wear, if your front wheels are set too far to the right it's gonna pull on the left hand side of both rear wheels, and also affect fuel economy, i bet since fiat did your top mounts the car has taken a little drop in mpg's?

My fronts have worn through on outside edge again. Tyre fitter says to ignore fiat settings and set toe in according to wear.

mikbak said:

My fronts have worn through on outside edge again. Tyre fitter says to ignore fiat settings and set toe in according to wear.

Click to expand...

Yep, seems this is the way to go, mine are fine now.
LUIGI