Andresz said:
oysbergl said:
hello . thanks for the tip, today switched to four new tires and the sound is now gone.
:clap
This is a very important lesson not only for the California 4-motion owners, but any other user of 4x4 vehicle.
Fortunately in my Grand Vitara I always have even tyres diameter, due to fact that every half a year a switch to winter or summer wheels mixing placement of the wheels with this occasion, so the wear is even.
Right, if you rotate wheels every 6 months or so as advised, it's fine, but when you get an unrepairable puncture in one tyre, what do you do? It's happened to me twice already...
If all 4 are relatively new, then you just replace the bad one. But when all 4 tyres are at half-life or worse, you only have 3 options, least favourable first...
1) Replace all four tyres
'Crazy'
as it's a very expensive outlay and you're throwing away 3 perfectly good tyres.
2) Replace both tyres on the same axle
Depending on the wear, this can lead to the 'vibration' since there is too much difference in tread depth between front and rear axles.
3) Replace the bad tyre and get it 'shaved' down to the depth of the other 3
I've only heard about this in the US - has anyone done it?
There really should be something in the 'brain' of the 4Motion system that can detect and average out the differences in speed between axles due to wear. This would put the system back to a 'baseline' state without constantly trying to compensate as though there is a 'real' difference in speed between axles due to loss of traction for example. As I understand it, haldex is not purely a mechanical device, but controllable...
