Hi, found this forum when looking for info on the thread title fault.
I see from the stickies the fault of excessive front tyre inner edge wear is a possible known fault with tracking.
I noticed my wife's car which has now done 22000 miles, was pulling to left during winter and since it was only just 1 year old at the time, advised her to get the garage to check it out under warranty at that time. Unfortunately she did not do this and a week or so ago I noticed the tread on the left rear tyre was worn down on the outside edge. It is almost bald on outside edge. I then checked the other tyres and found excessive wear to inside edges of both front tyres bad enough that they require replacement, as does left rear.
Today it was checked at the Fiat dealership and she was told that wear on front tyres was "normal front wheel drive tyre wear". When she asked them to check the tracking they refused to do it unless she paid. The checking for a fault with steering/suspension consisted of up on ramp and a visual inspection for damage followed by test drive. We can't see anything wrong is their response, no thought given to the fact that one rear tyre is badly worn on outside edge and other is OK.
When she got home I was so angry that I phoned them to ask what was going on. The extent of the lies that I was given by the service guy was worrying, "all FWD cars wear their tyres on inside edge, it's normal", "cars always pull to left due to camber of road", "we checked car and couldn't find anything wrong so it must be OK".
When I asked him about why one of the rear tyres had wear on outside edge and the other didn't, he did describe the wear as "abnormal", when challenged on this he quickly backtracked saying "it could be due to carcase of tyre". I asked why they were willing to allow my wife to drive away with a car that has an obvious fault that they were unwilling to check with nothing more than a visual check, no tracking check unless my wife paid on a car still under warranty.
The statement that FWD cars all wear their tyres on inside edge was what most annoyed me because I've owned and worked on many FWD cars, over nearly 40 years, Minis, Metros, Sciroccos(MK1+2), Golf GTIs (and few others I won't admit to owning) and none of them wore the inside edge of their front tyres unless there was a fault with tracking and/or excessive front camber. His response when I informed him that he was talking rubbish was to continually repeat "FWD cars all wear the inside edge of front tyres".
The assertion that "all cars pull to left due to camber of road" I disproved by driving up the slip road of the motorway where the road falls from left to right, if what he said were true, it should have pulled to right "due to the camber", surprise, surprise it still pulled to left.
The only concession I got from him was that my wife could get the tracking checked for free but if it was out she'd have to pay to adjust as it's not part of warranty. Think I'll go with her and ask him to show me all the year+ old cars in their stock that have "normal FWD wear on inside edges of tyres".
Sorry for this rant to be my 2nd post on here but I'm not happy that we're being lied to by a major Fiat dealer who is trying to absolve themselves of the responsibility of finding and dealing with an obvious fault on a 16 month old car still under warranty.
I see from the stickies the fault of excessive front tyre inner edge wear is a possible known fault with tracking.
I noticed my wife's car which has now done 22000 miles, was pulling to left during winter and since it was only just 1 year old at the time, advised her to get the garage to check it out under warranty at that time. Unfortunately she did not do this and a week or so ago I noticed the tread on the left rear tyre was worn down on the outside edge. It is almost bald on outside edge. I then checked the other tyres and found excessive wear to inside edges of both front tyres bad enough that they require replacement, as does left rear.
Today it was checked at the Fiat dealership and she was told that wear on front tyres was "normal front wheel drive tyre wear". When she asked them to check the tracking they refused to do it unless she paid. The checking for a fault with steering/suspension consisted of up on ramp and a visual inspection for damage followed by test drive. We can't see anything wrong is their response, no thought given to the fact that one rear tyre is badly worn on outside edge and other is OK.
When she got home I was so angry that I phoned them to ask what was going on. The extent of the lies that I was given by the service guy was worrying, "all FWD cars wear their tyres on inside edge, it's normal", "cars always pull to left due to camber of road", "we checked car and couldn't find anything wrong so it must be OK".
When I asked him about why one of the rear tyres had wear on outside edge and the other didn't, he did describe the wear as "abnormal", when challenged on this he quickly backtracked saying "it could be due to carcase of tyre". I asked why they were willing to allow my wife to drive away with a car that has an obvious fault that they were unwilling to check with nothing more than a visual check, no tracking check unless my wife paid on a car still under warranty.
The statement that FWD cars all wear their tyres on inside edge was what most annoyed me because I've owned and worked on many FWD cars, over nearly 40 years, Minis, Metros, Sciroccos(MK1+2), Golf GTIs (and few others I won't admit to owning) and none of them wore the inside edge of their front tyres unless there was a fault with tracking and/or excessive front camber. His response when I informed him that he was talking rubbish was to continually repeat "FWD cars all wear the inside edge of front tyres".
The assertion that "all cars pull to left due to camber of road" I disproved by driving up the slip road of the motorway where the road falls from left to right, if what he said were true, it should have pulled to right "due to the camber", surprise, surprise it still pulled to left.
The only concession I got from him was that my wife could get the tracking checked for free but if it was out she'd have to pay to adjust as it's not part of warranty. Think I'll go with her and ask him to show me all the year+ old cars in their stock that have "normal FWD wear on inside edges of tyres".
Sorry for this rant to be my 2nd post on here but I'm not happy that we're being lied to by a major Fiat dealer who is trying to absolve themselves of the responsibility of finding and dealing with an obvious fault on a 16 month old car still under warranty.