Hello All!

First post here as I am just in the midst of trying to join the Volvo family.

Heres my delema....

Looking at buying a 2006 XC90 2.5T AWD with 36,000 Miles on it that is a "Certified Volvo Pre-Owned" car. Accoridng to the carfax and the dealer the car was a lease return, in which I'm afraid these are the original Tires and looks as if they were never rotated by the person leasing the vehicle. They are 17 Inch Michelin Synchron's.

Looking at the tires they have 3 times the amount of tread on the back as the front tires. The front tires also have more wear showing on the outside edge of the tire than the middle. I know by Volvo's "pre-Owned Certified standards" all tires must pass the minimum tread depth of 4/32" (3 readings per tire).

For one...I wasnt sure what they consider "three readings" as far as location on the tire for those three readings. Wether its 3 readings on three seperate horizontal grooves in the tire?

Secondly...The dealer claims that if they do replace any tires on it they would replace the two worn tires and leave the others. They stated that there is no bennefit to having identicle tires on the car and we should be fine. I'm more inclined to think from reading the board on tires for this AWD model that it is a big deal!

I wasnt just the tire wear that concerned us, but the fact the car has a drift or pull to the right that they cannot fix. I fear they are going to rotate the better tires to the front and claim its fixed. I saw in the threads that the tires with the most tread should always be in the back?

I called Volvo Customer Care to speak with them about their requirements of a dealer to meet or replace items that dont meet their standards and got a simple response of "The dealer just records the details of their findings and its up to myself and the dealer to work out any concerns about the report". So no help there at all....

I dont want to drive off the lot with this car and now own the nightmare of bad camber settings, allignments, and bad tires and just not sure where to go from here. Weve been looking for a very long time to find this model with the features we like in the colors we like and would hate to walk away now.

Should we push for all new tires? Or let them go with 2 new tires even though volvo themselves reccomends replacing all tires at the same time?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

Many XC90 owners are concerned withtire wear, but they should atleast wear evenly. If the tires ar worn more on the in side, this could be a camber issue. Inside+outside wear could be the result oftoo low tire pressure and center wear from too high pressure. I would ask this dealer to due an alignment inspection and show you the results before you decide. Unless you're in a hurry, I would look around some more. There should be lots of these on the market and chances are you'll find one that was not a lease and/or with better tires.