Winter Tire Wear, Summer Tires now on

[Olestra]

Winter Tire Wear (pics!), Summer Tires now on

So, this past weekend I got my all season tires back on for the summer. They are just the stock tires (RS-A) being put back on. Got them serviced at Costco for $11 a tire. I think that's a great deal, my local tire shop wanted $25 a tire. I was a little late due to laziness, lack of time and unpredictability of Edmonton weather. Next year, I'll put my summers on back earlier.

Anyways, the point of this post is to ask about tire wear and rotation.
I had to change my winter tires into different bags because the bags they gave me were dirty and I didn't want to spread that around my basement. While I was transfering the tires, I thought I'd inspect them. They had a bit of dirt on them, but not bad because I had sprayed them down a week before they were taken off.
I noticed three things that were of concern:

- On my back two tires, there were TONS of pebbles stuck in the tread. And even more little tiny tiny ones. Some even punctured through the rubber.
The two front had very little pebbles. Any reason for this??
I figure it may be a combination of leaving them on too long and also driving onto a gravel road. But why the back two with lots of rocks and the front two with almost none. I took a tool with a pointy end and pried most of the rocks out. Now the tires look like they have tread areas with large and small gaps.

- On my back two tires, the tread wear on the inside of the tires was noticeable (I think this is common knowledge on forums?). The tread is cracking a little on the very inside edge. The outer seems fine. The front two tires seem like new, so even treadwear... I thought, maybe I should have rotated them every 5k kms. I drove 10k kms without rotation (the tire shop said they rotate at 10k for free...). So I looked up this rotation diagram and tried to think about how it would help the tread wear evenly. I believe the FWD diagram is the same as in the Mazda3 manual.

http://www.1010tires.com/tech.asp?type=tires#rotation

How does the rotation help prevent the inside of the tire tread wear out less? When you put the back tire on the front, even if you cross them over like in the diagram, the inside is still on the inside. It doesn't flip the inside to the outside. Maybe I'm wrong? Does this make sense?

-One last concern. I saw the inside side wall of my tires had a caked on dirt patch. This seemed weird that each tire had just one area with a dirt patch. I tried scratching at it but it seems almost bonded to the rubber. I think some scrubbing with water/soap would help, but I kinda just put them away without doing that because I didn't want to deal with wet tires. Do you think this will eat the tire and crack it? As in, I'll take them out next winter and see my tires ruined...?

And one more question. When did you guys change your tires out? I know this is a weather biased question.

Sorry for the long post. =) These questions and answers will help me and hopefully other ppl find out how to take care of seasonal tires properly.

 

[ill_eagle94]

I can say that the gravel not found in the front tires is dur to the fact that when you turn, it spreads the tread blocks apart, so the rocks can fall out, where as the rear tires are just following where the front of the car is leading it.

 

[Olestra]

Hmm. Good point. When I dug rocks out, I had to dig deep in the tread to get some rocks out. They wouldn't be embedded in there too far to just fall out?

Edit: I took a bunch of pics just now. Uploading them now.

 

[Olestra]

Pics

I know ppl respond better with pictures, so I went in the basement and got my hands all dirty on the tires. =)

First pic is all my tires sitting in the basement. =)

These are pics of my two rear tires. See there are still tons of tiny pebbles in the treads. There used to be much bigger rocks, I picked all the big ones out. The 3rd and 4th pic show the inner tread. You can see that some of the tiny grooves are wider. This is where rocks got stuck and stretched the groove apart. I hope it didn't wreck the tires too badly. =(

 

[Olestra]

In the first pic, this is a close up of the inner tread of one of the rear tires. You can see that it has little cracks in the tread near the bottom left of the picture, close to the wide lateral groove. This consistent throughout the whole inner tread. Not good compared to the rest of the tire.

Second pic - you can see the caked on dirt patch. Looks like little bubbles. Tried scraping them but it's as if I'm scraping rubber. Maybe the rubber bubbled and it's not dirt?? That would be bad news too. =(

The last two pics are of my drivers side front tire. I didn't bother with the passenger front, it looks the same. It seems in really good shape.

Forgot to mention. These are Hankook W300 Ice Bears in 205-50-R17. They handled excellent in the winter. Gave me tons of confidence on ice, light snow, slush, wet. Only times I was a little worried was on sheet ice (no tire can take this I don't think) and thick, deep snow where my rear would drift back and forth. I think this is more because the tire is wide slash car is not that heavy. I did blow up my passenger front tire on a pot hole and had to get it warrantied. So that one is around 6000kms newer.
The other tires are almost exactly 10500kms old.

 

[dcomiskey]

That's toally normal for snow tires. The compund is very soft and the sipes/blocks spread apart easily. Nothing to worry about. It's how they get good grip in the winter.

Only problem I had is that my fronts were worn down a good 1/4" more than the rears after one season. But, I got bad tires and beat the piss out of them.

 

[ill_eagle94]

Don't worry a bit about those. As dcomiskey said, snow tires have a very soft compound. I've seen the same exact thing in the past on all my snow tires. They will be fine. The tread needs to be that soft, so that when you're in the snow, they can spread apart and grab the snow.

 

[Olestra]

Ok thanks. What about tire rotation? I can seem to picture in my head how it would balance out the inside tread wear with the outside tread.

 

[dcomiskey]

If you have more wear inside or outside, then you need an alignment. Tire rotation, I would swap fronts/rears each year to balance out the overall wear. But there shouldn't more more on the indside or outside of the tires.

 

[Olestra]

Ok, good to know, I did not know that. Thanks!
I tried to tell the dealer that I needed an alignment because my car was pulling to the right and should get it under the service adjustment category of my first year warranty and they said they didn't notice any problems. Test drove with a tech as well as the tech drove it himself...

 

[WagonMan]

When I took off my winters I was amazed to notice the fronts were half worn, this was only after putting about 4,500km on them over one winter. I will definately be rotating my winters next year, and will have no trouble identifing the fronts from the backs!