I've not done it on the Panda, but my Austin Mini was tracked by feeling the temperature across the tyre tread. Warm on outside means toe in. Warm on inside means toe out. Once adjusted, I had zero tyre wear issues (apart from normal usage) and the car steered better.
Never heard of that one before Dave but I can see how it might work. When I worked with the racing tyres we could tell a great deal about how the tyres were working with a car's suspension by taking temperature readings across the tread (or "slick" as we called it because most dry running tyres had no tread pattern). This involved sticking a slim needle, like a hypodermic, with a thermocouple embedded in the end of it right into the tyre down to the interface between tread and casing rubber and observing the temp - often hot enough to boil water! One reading would be taken just inboard of the inner shoulder, one in the middle and one just inboard of the outer shoulder. The skill came with interpreting what the readings were telling you about what changes to recommend to the engineers as to what changes to the likes of Camber, Toe, Antiroll bar stiffness etc might be beneficial. It was almost more of an "art" than a science and varied from car to car and driver to driver!
On a more mundane, every day, level you can tell a great deal about the health of your suspension and steering by regularly inspecting the full width of the tyre tread. Of course many of you will know this already, but for the benefit of those less knowledgeable:- Turn the steering to full lock and observe the full width of the tyre tread. Ideally the tread groove depth should be the same right across the width. A new tyre will have in the region of 8mm and you should be thinking about renewing when it gets down to around 2mm. The legal minimum is 1.6mm but if you run your tyres down as low as this wet weather performance will be very considerably compromised. On modern cars it's often seen that the inner shoulder is more worn than the rest of the width. This might be due to the wheels being toed out to much but is also often due to somewhat worn, soft, suspension bushes allowing the wheels to splay out slightly under braking. If this is the reason then the more heavily you brake the worse will be the wear. One, of the many, reasons why gentle braking is greatly beneficial. Excessively worn outer shoulders may simply be due to "over enthusiastic" cornering speeds but might also point to toe needing to be adjusted - of curse this could also be the reason the inner shoulders are worn too. The other obvious thing you want to look for is whether wear is identical on both sides of the tread blocks. To check for this look at one of the more central tread bands on the tyre (you'll find most tyres have 2, 3 or 4 tread bands depending on width) On either side of an individual band will be the groove but look at the very edges of the tread band itself. Compare the inner edge with the outer edge. If both edges look the same then there's a good chance your suspension and steering is in good order. If however, one side is rounded and the other "lipped" then you've got a problem. If the effect is only very small, by which I mean you've got to look pretty hard to see the difference, then don't worry about it. Some vehicles tend to wear their tyres this way anyway (for a variety of reasons we won't mention here) However if the effect is marked, often accompanied by excessive wear on either the inner or outer shoulder, then you need to get things checked out. Might be simply that the toe needs adjusted, might be that a component is worn - ball joints, and rubber bushings are favourites - but it might also mean that there's damage, so don't ignore abnormal tyre wear. Oh, and while you're down there looking at your tyres, check the outer and, especially, the inner sidewalls for cracking and other damage. It's more likely that the outer walls will have been damaged by kerbing etc and you'll easily see this if you bother to look, but inner sidewalls are very seldom checked by anyone - probably either at service time or MOT and as many get their car's serviced just before or at the same time as their MOT this means the inner sidewall is only looked at once a year!
If you've had your steering checked and perhaps adjusted too then don't just think "right, that's all done now, I can ignore it" You need to keep a regular check on the tyre wear because it's not all that unusual to find the adjustments made leave something to be desired or a worn component was not picked up before adjustment. I've watched, especially in so called "tyre specialist", a "spanner weilder" setting about making adjustments without in any way undertaking even a rudimentary check for worn components or damage.
People's "couldn't care less" or "can't be bothered" attitude to tyre care has been brought home very forcibly to me this very week. We are spending a few days with my wife's sister just now (our annual "road trip in fact) - longer than we'd intended for a reason I may make a separate post about soon when I know the outcome to - involves the Ibiza and I'm too upset to think about it now!! She lives in a very rural part of Devon, which means many miles traveled down some very picturesque but diabolical to drive, narrow, sunken lanes. The local drivers are Kamikazi pilots, driving towards you at insane speeds and hurtling past with hardly a millimeter to spare! Their cars all seem to bear significant "battle scars" of frightening proportions. Sister in law drives a Land Rover Freelander with a fair share of said scars proudly on display and I am terrified by the way she drives up the verges, with hardly any slackening of speed, to get past others - to say nothing of the way she mounts kerbs and other obstructions in the narrow streets of the local hamlets. It's probably the only way you're going to make progress and I see many others doing it so it just seems to be the way it's done down here but the tyres, oh dear, the tyres! So, for something to do, I spent some time looking at her tyres yesterday. I should say sister in law is not in good health and has absolutely zero interest in cars so I was not surprised to fine 3 tyres down to probably under 3 mm in depth with quite a number of cuts in the treads, not dangerously down to the cords but "significant" cuts non the less, probably due to the "forays" up the verges. O/S/F is nearly new so probably suffered a "fate worse than death" in the very recent past. More disturbingly the N/S/F has a very large cut, extending from the bead, where there's also a large chunk missing from the bead, right out to the shoulder of the sidewall of the tyre. Luckily, although deep, it's not quite down to the cords but it opens and closes a bit as the weight is taken when the vehicle moves. Needless to say the car is now booked into her local garage for a new tyre tomorrow and we won't be going anywhere in it today. In fact there is also other superficial damage to both this tyre and the N/S/R, no doubt caused by "excursions" in the past and, as the O/S/R is nearly worn out too, I'm trying to get her to replace all three. The car has permanent 4WD too so I don't think it is wise to run a combination of new/ nearly new tyres with a couple of nearly worn out ones anyway, because of the permanent AWD? Sister in law was totally unaware that she had any problems at all and, more disturbingly, didn't seem concerned when I showed her!
