Oh dear, only 4 months and 6000 miles down the line do I need another set of front tyres! I really don't know what I'm doing wrong, I'm driving sensibly have had not 1 wheelspin off these tyres because of good grip, I haven't been accelerating hard or anything!

So tomorrow she'll be having 4 new Pirelli P3000's, an alignment check and new front pads! Every month (or even 2 weeks) I'm going to rotate the tyres (front to back) so that hopefully I'll get even wear from the set of 4 and so they'll last me longer than 6000 miles. Only trouble is now, all my months pay has gone on the lot

Wow Thats some smokin!!! I got 30k on my front on my fully loaded Cargo before I had to change to wet weather tyres. They were the crappy Dunlops she came with. I did my best to terminate their existence!! I went for Firestones and they were sticky....for another 30k and now back on Dunlops...my tyre man was getting married and couldn't get me the Firestones before the wedding....long story.

Well my fellow doblo driving chum... we've been running Michellin energy's on our 52 plate JTD ELX.

We've just changed the fronts and they did 26.000 miles, and they were still legal.. The rears which were fitted at the same time still have bags of life left in them.

Anually we do over 12.000 miles a year.

Your obviously doing something different, whether its your driving style, or whether your using the wrong tyre pressures?

We run ours all the time with the tyre pressures set for maximum payload and this seems to improve longevity and fuel economy, daily driving gives a minimum of 56 mpg according to the readout on the dash.

Ive read many comments about doblo owners who shred their tyres.

Ozzie,

If you're not driving like a tit then something must be wrong. Mrs_G has done that mileage in the last 3 weeks and her new Vredestein tyres and they still look like new. A nice sexy directional pattern as well - see my earlier 'tyres' thread.

Did you have the alignment check last time? If so get it done again somewhereelse.

6000 miles is hopeless - certainly wouldn't put up with it on a business vehicle used to generate an income.

If you realy want to swap your tyres front to back I'd leave them in situ until the fronts are half worn and then do the swap - the rears will have very little wear at that point but will then 'catch up' with the original fronts after the swap.

LUKHYGO mate.

Niall.

Forgot to ask:

What part of the tread has worn out?

Niall.

The whole of the tread has worn evenly across the tyre, didn't get the tracking checked last time but I am today. It has been pulling to the left slightly lately too and the brakes are fine and the discs aren't binding.

If I don't get much more life out of these Pirelli P3000's then I'll think about swapping to another make. My biggest problem is I don't do a lot of motorway driving, it's all town and my fuel consumption is averaging 50mpg in day to day use.

Oh and I always run the fronts at full load pressure, the back I adjust accordingly if I'm carrying a heavy load or just 1 or 2 people.

Well? Did the tracking need adjustment?

My tyres were late coming in today and I had to go to work so I couldn't get it done. Working 9 - 8 tomorrow so Friday it'll be going in. The guy I normally deal with wasn't there today as it was his day off so the person I spoke too wasn't so happy about giving me the discount my friend had! But he'll be there Friday so everything will be rosy and hopefully if I'm there for 9 it'll be done in no time.

I tell you I hope these last longer, I really am going to drive very very slowly and take corners slower than a robin reliant! I can't afford all this money on tyres... I literally have no money left in my account now for fuel, food, or anything this month, oh the joys of being a student

Hope i`m in time to catch you with this...
I found the tyre solution by fitting *95/93* tyres to the same spec as in the cargo model. ( look in the handbook)
These are 6 ply tyres ( not 4 as standard) and have extra tread depth.
These *95/93* tyres were less than half worn at 10,000 miles.
*Below is a cut and paste from a post I made some time ago on this forum, before losing my nick................*

"I was getting 6/7.000 miles before doing this, on the front,
I think it may have been my post on a tyre forum refered to with the 7,500 mile tyres (pirelli p3000 reinforced) as referred to by Doblo.
I put the same tyres on the front again (Doblo JTD) and ran with 3 bar all round.
I then got 8,000, but the tyres wore much more evenly across the full width of the tread.
I may have an answer to tyre wear.....
There are 175/70 R 14 car tyres on some doblo`s apparantly, these are the weakest.
Standard on most Doblo`s are the 175 70 R 14 REINFORCED.....
But the Doblo Cargo extra capacity has 175 70 R14 95/93s as standard
Well the 95/93S is a strength beyond "reinforced" they are 6 ply rather than 4 ply tyres.
The 95/93S also has just over 9 mm of tread.. rather than about 7mm on the reinforced.
So i had 4 of these Pirelli CityNet 175 14 95/93 S fitted
and I`m running them at 3bar all round.
The ride is slightly firmer, but handling is fine, perhaps even better.
Just be sure they fit the 95/93S as there are the weaker "reinforced" also in the CityNet commercial range "

Ozzie1989 said:

I literally have no money left in my account now for fuel, food, or anything this month, oh the joys of being a student

Click to expand...

Betcha still got your beer/women fund tho

Oilrag I wish I knew this before I told him I'd go ahead with the 4 Pirelli P3000's. I might ask them about this tomorrow morning before they fit them and see what they suggest... I'll tell them that Fiat advised me to put on these tyres instead of the P3000's because they'll wear just as quick again. Thanks for your reply though!

Oh and Niall, I don't drink any alchohol, and I don't need to pay for my women

There is an easy formula for this problem to make the tyres last longer ---

1. Use a depth gauge, as it appears that on some dobbins front tyres wear out quickly (not very on mine..? )

2. Once you realise that the tyres on the front are "going down quickly"


3. Change around the tyres front to back , don't forget to replace the rears onto the front (or is it a local souther's thing, twaaang get out the guitar.... ) ...................

Therefore if common sense "is there" change around your tyres at an appropriate time......

Thus getting the most out of your tyres and having a full set replacement when required, that in some places realise discounts + reductions.....

COMMON SENSE

Hope you get it sorted Ozzie.
It was actually a tyre dealer that put me onto the 95/93s spec tyres.
IMHO its not poor driving style either that wears the tyres.
It seems to me that the JTD Doblo is running on narrow tyres for its weight/power.
There is a *steep* downhill road near home where you have to slow down for a single lane under a bridge. Under normal braking on a damp road the Doblo often locked a front wheel momentarily under quite modest braking.
Now , I have driven ( owned) 27 different vehicles over the last 40 years in this local area and the Doblo was the only one to do this.
I bet its a lot better now with ABS, but mine was a 2002 model without ABS.
Great vehicle though apart from seeming *under tyred*
For example.
I now run a Punto with the 1.3 Multijet, same driving style/speeds/braking/ that took the P 3000 tyres to the legal limit in 7,500 miles in the Doblo. But the fronts have only lost 1mm in 6,000 miles on the Punto.
The Punto has 165 70 R 14 tyres and yet the Doblo`s are only slightly wider despite being significantly heavier.
While the 95/93S tyres solved the wear problem for the rest of our ownership of the Doblo, the relative ( compared to our other cars) low grip levels at the front end persisted, although we learnt to compensate for it especially on damp roads.

hi,if your tyres are not very wide and have high provile with soft spring like yours has for comfort, if u drive it like a sports car in to corner the tyre wont last long at all, coz of all the weight shifting in the give of the spring and the flex in the tyre wall,sounds like your trying to go abit to fast for your set up,plus pirellis are a soft tyre,if your not racing i would go for a budget tyre coz there harder and last longer,and they cost lots less as long as your not going to the edge in the wet they are fine.what pressure are u putting in in psi?

Thanks oilrag!

And to "the gentleman" were not racing our Doblo's mate, and certainly not going too fast for our set up. It's a common problem that quite a few people have had over the years with the Doblo.

You're going to get fairly high wear on any front wheel drive car as they're doing the job of steering and moving the car, my sisters Fiesta is the same with her standard alloys, sometimes only getting 5000 out of a set of tyres and she certainly does not rag her Fiesta around but it is a 1.8 Diesel so theres a lot of weight up there at the front.

Still waiting for a phonecall off the garage at the moment, seems like they're messing me around a bit

Ok then some good news Went down the garage and my friend there had all the tyres ready. He said "Well those tyres don't look that worn" he got out his gauge and checked and they all still had 4mm of tread left on them and the new ones only had 7mm so he said they're not even half worn and are wearing evenly. So I've decided to go out and buy a tyre guage lol! However, my pads were worn below the specified limit, and although the discs didn't have hardly any lip on them they had also worn quite a lot which explains my long pedal travel and were below their specified limit. He did comment that the brakes still worked exceptionally well even though they were below the limit as he took it for a emergency stop test drive!

So I'm having the discs and pads replaced later on this afternoon when the discs come... but what surprised me the most was the price... 4 pads and 2 discs for £98 ok so that was after a little discount but even without it's only £120! Whcih as far as I know is pretty damn cheap and including labour you can't go wrong!

this tyre story intrigues me, I think I drive my dobbie pretty hard, and I'm only on my 4th set of front tyres (and 2nd set of back tyres) after nearly 3 years, I also only buy budget make car tyres (not remoulds) the best deal I got was four fitted and balance for £95.00 !
Just goes to show that expensive make tyres are no better, Ozzie I'm convinced there must be something wrong with your dobbie, when its going through so many tyres.

Ozzie's tyres are giving themselves up at the thoughts of a 2.4 conversion

Incidently Ozzie my front pads went to the metal with NO PAD WARNING LIGHT so I changed them myself I think the pads were about €30 including Vodka And Tonic The discs were fine though still feel they could be a bit bigger. The brakes faded once on me when I was tearing across the mountains in the dark, you know the story its late and your starving...

Forgive my lack of knowledge but Dobbies are FWD yes? With a FWD it's always best to keep your best tyres on the REAR of the vehicle. This means you won't get the rear end breaking away which is almost impossible to correct with FWD.

When your fronts get to the limit of the usable grip you swap the rears to the front and get new tyres on the back.

Then when the tyres on the front get worn down you swap the rears to the front and get new tyres on the back... and Ariston..

Hi Hellcat

My Doblo is the extra carrying capacity model so guess what the rear tyres have a higher load rating than the fronts and guess what she was supplied with the wrong rear tyres from new "good ould Fiat!"
But the right ones are on now...but it was an uphill struggle