Consolidating some thoughts from other posts on V70 XC Tire Wear:

I, and others on the forum, have noted significant outer shoulder front tire wear on V70 XCs (mine is a 99 model). This negative effect is impossible to mitigate through straight rotation (although at least your front and rear tires will have the same worn outer shoulders). If you go to the trouble to rotate your tires *between opposing wheels* you can spread the wear across the inner and outer shoulders. That is, you have to have your tires unmounted from your wheels and switched to opposing sides so the outer shoulders become the inner shoulders. This is not the typical rotation pattern.

One forum member (Steven) took the trouble to experiment with his alignment and adjusted the front camber to a full negative 1 degree. That has appeared to correct the wear problem.

However, is there anyone on the forum that can comment on the effect that change might have on other suspension components or on handling. Traditionally, negative camber improves lateral grip at, perhaps, some cost in initial turn-in response. Does that hold true for the XC AWD setup? Will going to negative camber have any detrimental effects on the vehicle?

I spoke with my dealer and they describe the excessive wear as normal. However, since it means that I have to replace all four tires when the outer shoulders are worn down while the rest of the tire is fine that seems to me to be an unnecessary expense if there are other changes that will correct the wear.

Is the outer wear just a problem with the XC or does it also affect the V70 AWD or even the FWD models? What is different about the front-end of the XC that would cause unusual wear?

One of the earlier posts indicated it's a mixed bag - most of the complaints seem to involve the XC. It may be that the taller suspension plays a part but I've seen nothing that explains what's happening. I'm going for the camber adjustment to see if it plays a part. With a mixture of experiences it may be an adjustment setting that hasn't been well communicated. I e-mailed Volvo of North America with no response as yet.

Hi Steve,

I have noticed this problem on all 70 series cars not just the XC. I have looked in Mall parking lots and at the Dealer used car lot. It is becoming a bad habit with me (walking around looking for 70 series cars to see if the front end has tire wear problems). I have found 70 series car that have perfect tire wear and I have found some that look horrible. The last XC I saw was a 1998 that had a pair of Goodyear on the front with the outside of the tire worn down to the plies with a lot of tread on the inside. With a pair of Continentals on the rear that had no tread wear at all! Someone is heading for a major repair.

My 98 XC went about 45K with original Continentals -- about half city, half highway, wife-driven. Don't know why the 99 should be any different.

I have a 99XC too and I just had to replace all 4 tires at 27,000 miles. 2 were practically bald on the outer shoulders and 2 looked like new-it was ridiculous! The guys at the tire shop were thrilled to collect my like new tires which irked me even further. I, too, was told this was typical of All Wheel Drive Vehicles with performance type (read soft rubber) tires. I replaced the lousy Continentals with Michelins but am very unhappy that this is supposedly the "way it is" if one tire wears all 4 should be replaced to prevent damage to some mechanism in the car. I was also told extra pressure won't work but more frequent rotations might extend the life of the tires-every 7,500 instead of 10,000 miles- heck I didn't even get to my 30,000 mile service with original tires! I wish I had known about this 4 tire policy prior to purchasing the car!

Hi A.J.

I posted this early and this should help on the tire wear. I have 25K mile on my tire and they are shot too.

Good luck,

Hi Steve,

I too had excessive outer tire wear on the front end of my V70 XC. I gave up with Volvo in trying to get it fixed. In stead I started to experiment on the problem my self and this is what I have found.

1) There is 2degs of slop in the Camber on the front end. If you loosen the 2 shock tower bolts that attach the shock to the steering knuckle you can move the Camber from -1deg to +1deg. I adjusted my front end to -1deg ( both tire top pointing in /\)and found that the outer tire wear almost went to zero.

2) I was rotate my tires every 3K miles and I do a cross rotation (i.e. front left to right rear and right rear to front right and front right to left rear). Note on some radial tires you can not change the rotation direction, so check with the manufacture before you do a cross rotation.

If the 2degs of slop dose not correct the outer tire wear then you can slot the shock tower bolt hole to get more Camber adjustment. Some after market shocks come pre-slotted.

Going with 1º will not hurt anything. Most people cannot even tell a difference that small. What would be cheaper and perhaps worth a try it higher tire pressure. What will not correct the problem but it may cause the wear to move in more and away from the shoulder. That with the new camber settings may be the trick.