Ever have a tire wear like this?

[dnale]

This is on the inside of my front right tire. These two pics are taken about 180* from each other. It blends from one to the other. The car has had an alignment about every year and the tires had about a summer and a half. So probably 30-35k miles. What causes this? I could understand the smooth balding on the inside but the big shoulder?

 

[Tom03es]

Bad tie rod ends causing the wheel to toe-out?

You got your money worth out of those tires though- WOW!

 

[Olestra]

Lol, those look like drag slicks...
How'd you manage rain on those?

 

[dnale]

I'm not deny-ing that I got my money's worth... Rain, well I had to be aware of what I was doing. It shouldn't be a tie-rod end. Those pics are of the same tire just 180* from each other.

 

[Bartron8000]

The wear on the inside is an indication of a couple possible things. Your camber could be out of spec, and if you have lowering springs and didn't install the camber adjustment bolt that could do it too. Driving habits can also affect camber as well. I know a lot of people that drive their BMW's hard usually have excessive camber wear. My car has lowering springs w/out the camber bolts and I drive it hard around corners and have the same wear.

 

[dnale]

So with camber issue it would be un-even wear on the inside? I never put lowering spring on the car so as far as I know it's stock springs. (new struts last year though...)

 

[Tom03es]

camber doesn't effect tire wear nearly as much as toe.

Were these tires inflated properly?

 

[slavrenz]

I think you guys are missing the fact that he said that those pictures are only 180 degrees apart on the same tire. If I am understanding it correctly, these images are from the same side of the same tire on opposite edges. I don't think traditional issues such as toe and inflation problems would cause this, since all edges of the same side of a tire *should see even wear.

That said, my only possible guess is that you might have a severly out-of-balance tire where a lot more load is getting placed on one side of the tire face when it contacts the ground, and not the other. Good luck

 

[dnale]

Slavrenz is correct on the photo. Same tire, both on the inside of the wheel, just 180 degrees from each other. Could have just been a bad tire. Obviously the tire isn't going back on. I'll have them swapped since they are off the car already.

 

[slavrenz]

I guess you'll just have to keep an eye on it to see if the same issue develops. Does the abnormal wear occur suddenly about halfway up the tire? If so, I would be apt to just blame a defective tire. If it is a gradual increase, though, you might actually have another issue, but again, I can't for the life of me think of a suspension component out of whack that wouldn't cause abnormal wear around the whole tire side.

 

[Tom03es]

Probably slipped a belt inside the tire.

The tires have had a good life- replace them with something new and be done.

 

[dnale]

That's my plan, I'm just making sure it wasn't an indication of something that isn't being replaced when I put new rubber on.

 

[Bartron8000]

If it is a problem more than likely I'm guessing who ever installs your new tires will tell you something is wrong. Thats what happened when I had to get a tire patched the guy at discount told me my camber was bad, even though I already knew that. Good luck with this.

 

[4giglz]

I've had the same problem with my last two sets of tires. The first set I wrote off as going too far with my camber and toe settings. I backed off the settings some and got the camber correction bolts, and it has helped, but not gone. My wear was even all the way around the tire and looked like the top picture on the first post.

 

[bgibb68]

i had tires wear like that.....they were rubbing on the struts....alignment fixed it....it was just horrible out....and it would be the toe...


actually happened to all 4 tires once and then 1 tire about 2 months ago

 

[dnale]

The car gets frequent alignment and if the wear was all the way around the tire like the first pic, then it's probably not the same as those two pictures are of the same tire.