Tires: tires, 2005 kia sedona, kia sedona

Question
Hi.  We bought Goodyear Viva 2 tires for our 2005 Kia Sedona minivan at Walmart about 18 months ago.  They have a 60k mile warranty and we have driven 20,000 miles.

The front two tires are severely worn on the inner portion of the tire.  Metal is showing on one tire.  We did have an alignment down 6 months ago.

We went to Walmart and they initially refused to handled the warranty, saying we would have to deal with Goodyear directly.  We called Goodyear and they told us Walmart would have to handle.  We went back and forth arguing a couple times and Walmart finally said they would handle the warranty claim, but that they would not cover anything because the cause was a mechanical problme with the van.  But they could not say specifically what the mechanical problem is.  He said maybe bad ball joints or alignment or balance.  He does not know but he won't cover it.

Is this reasonable?  Seems to me that even if the van is out of alignment the tires should last more than 1/3 of the warranty....

I did a Google search and found a lot of complaints about the Goodyear Viva 2.

Thanks for your help!

Answer
Scott,

Tires do not wear more on the inner portion of the tire unless the vehicle is out of alignment - could be either toe or camber (or both).  Since you had an alignment done 6 months ago (and the tires were on the vehicle at that time) it is logical to assume that the alignment was adjusted and that before the alignment was performed the tires developed the wear pattern in question.  Correcting the alignment only changes the wear from that point forward - meaning the wear pattern before the alignment remains and the new (but even) wear pattern goes on top.  The net effect is that the tires will still wear out on the inner portion of the tire, just later than if  the alignment had not been corrected.

This is why the tire is not covered under warranty.

Plus, I'll bet the conditions of the warranty says that the tires need to be rotated every 5,000 to 8,000 miles.  If you did not rotate the tires, then this becomes another reason the warranty might not apply.

It may seem unreasonable that you'd get only 1/3 the mileage of the warranty, but you should be aware of 2 things:

1)  FWD vehicles wear the front tires 2 1/2 times faster than the rear (which is why rotation is required to keep the mileage warranty in effect)

2)  Misalignment can wear tires many times faster than normal.  I've seen misaligned tires wear out just as you described in as little 3,000 miles.