5 Causes of Tire Wear and How to Prevent It
As any car owner knows, tires are very expensive, often around $1,000 per set. While extending the life of your tires can save you money, irregular wear such as scuffs reduces your mileage. But what exactly is tire wear, what causes it, and is it really dangerous to drive with worn tires?
What is tire wear? Tire wear is irregular tire wear that appears in the form of a wavy or bulging tread pattern. In most cases, this camber is not limited to a single area of the tread, but extends around the entire circumference of the tire.
Bulges are one of the most common forms of irregular tire wear, occurring on thousands of vehicles every year. Almost all vehicles, from cars to motorcycles, are susceptible to irregular tire wear.
The most important contributing factor in such irregular tire wear is mechanical fatigue. However, determining the exact cause of this mechanical fatigue can be a bit more complicated. Unfortunately, tire deformation problems cannot be resolved without mechanical intervention, and in many cases the actual damage has already occurred. As a result, a significant number of otherwise suitable tires are taken out of service each year due to significant deformation.
What causes tire deformation? Tire deformation can be caused by a variety of underlying conditions that vary in frequency and severity. When attempting to troubleshoot this type of profile-related problem, it is paramount to recognize and understand each of these root causes. Here are the most common causes of tire wear:
1) Not Rotating Tires Regularly
Tires simply don’t wear out evenly, which is why regular tire rotation (ideally every 6,000 miles or six months) is recommended for most vehicles. Not following this recommendation can result in uneven tire wear, scuffs, bulges, and bald spots.
Tire rotation is important for any vehicle, but trucks and vans are especially susceptible to wear if they don’t follow a tire rotation schedule.
Tire chains like Les Schwab and Discount Tire usually offer free tire rotations with the purchase of tires. Additionally, many oil change places (and some dealerships) offer a free tire rotation with the purchase of an oil change. There really is no excuse not to rotate your tires.
2) Worn or damaged suspension components
One of the most common causes of tire wear is severely worn suspension components. Your car’s shock absorbers and struts absorb vibrations from the road and prevent your car’s tires from bouncing erratically on the road surface. When any of these components are damaged, tire wear often follows shortly thereafter.
3) Unbalance
All wheels and tires have natural heavy spots and need to be balanced to ensure a smooth ride. This process should be repeated from time to time throughout the tire’s lifespan to improve tire stability.
However, if a tire is severely out of balance, uneven wear often occurs. In many cases, wear occurs due to the tire becoming out of balance as it bounces on the road surface.
4) Tire Out of Roundness
In some cases, a tire may exhibit excessive runout. This essentially means that the tire is out of round, resulting in a noticeable bounce or wobble while driving.
This generally occurs if the tire has moved on a structural belt or if the tire has poor construction. In most cases, these anomalies worsen over time, eventually leading to a large bulge.
5) Poor Alignment
A misaligned front axle can also cause the tire to have more camber. A standard vehicle’s front steering and suspension has three separate settings (caster, camber, and toe), and if each setting is not within specification, issues can occur. In the worst case scenario, it will almost certainly result in irregular tire wear.
Are worn tires dangerous? Driving with badly worn tires can actually be very dangerous. This is because worn treads do not grip the road as well as normally worn treads. Simply put, as tires wear out, the contact between the tread and the road surface is reduced, affecting the vehicle’s grip.
This loss of traction is no different from that caused by other types of irregular tire wear, such as: wear on the inside or outside of the tire; it is most noticeable when driving on slippery surfaces; it represents a serious hazard that can ultimately lead to an increased chance of an accident.
In either case, badly worn tires should be taken out of service and discarded as soon as possible. Furthermore, the underlying cause of the tire wear should be diagnosed and addressed to prevent future occurrences of irregular tire wear. Failure to take such measures could put your own safety and that of other road users at risk. What do cambered tires sound like?
Cambered tires tend to make a pretty loud buzzing or roaring noise when driving down the road. In many ways, it’s similar to the sound of a bad wheel bearing.
However, with cambered tires, this noise doesn’t change much when steering in one direction or the other. Additionally, this noise tends to be more noticeable on cambered off-road and mud tires. As your tires wear down, this noise becomes more noticeable and eventually becomes very audible. Unfortunately, the only way to reduce this noise is to replace the irregularly worn tires on your vehicle.
What Do Cupped Tires Sound Like?
Cupped tires tend to make a rather loud humming or droning noise when traveling down the road. In many ways, it’s comparable to the sound of a bad wheel bearing.
However, in the case of cupped tires, this sound does not change significantly when steering in one particular direction or the other. Of additional note, this sound tends to be much more pronounced in the case of cupped all-terrain or mud tires.
As tire cupping progresses, this sound will only continue to become more pronounced, eventually becoming extremely noticeable in nature. Unfortunately, the only way to alleviate this noise is by replacing your vehicle’s irregularly worn tires.
Can a Cupped Tire Be Fixed?
Whether or not cupped tires can be fixed is largely a case-by-case matter. If caught early enough, cupping can be minimized by properly balancing and rotating a vehicle’s tires, thereby placing each affected tire at a different wheel-end location.
Additionally, the exact cause of your tires’ cupping should be diagnosed and repaired as soon as possible. Doing so prevents your newly rotated tires from suffering the same wear.
However, some tires might be beyond the point of salvage. This is the case when cupping has occurred over a lengthy period of time, causing large discrepancies in tread wear. In cases such as this, it is often best to start fresh with the installation of new tires, following the repair of any underlying mechanical issues.
Tire Cupping vs Feathering
The terms “cupping” and “feathering” are often used interchangeably when describing irregular tire wear. However, these two conditions are not one and the same. Cupping describes an obvious dishing or scalloping of a tire’s tread, while feathering refers to a slanted wear pattern of individual tread blocks.
The latter of these conditions causes a tire’s tread to be worn considerably more on one edge of a tread block, while the other edge of a particular block of tread will be prominent and upturned. This creates a stair-stepped pattern across a tire’s tread, often resulting from alignment-related issues.
Prevention
Tire cupping is perhaps best prevented through regular, proactive vehicle maintenance. This includes regularly having your vehicle’s tires rotated and balanced, in addition to having an alignment performed any time that your vehicle’s tires are replaced. These steps alone will greatly reduce the prominence of irregular tire wear as a whole, including cupping.
It is also advised to have your vehicle’s steering and suspension components inspected by a trained professional, at regular intervals. All components found to be defective, damaged, or excessively worn should be replaced. This, in turn, prevents unnecessary damage from being done to a vehicle’s tires, thereby saving motorists both time and money.