Tire Wear Patterns And What They Mean?

Tire Wear Patterns And What They Mean
   / @jpautofleetservices1594  

I’m going to walk you through tire wear patterns and what they mean today. This will help you analyze your own tires, so you know if something needs fixing, adjusting or replacing.

In the past week alone, I have seen three separate instances where I had to perform steering and suspension related repairs on my customer's cars. Each time the tire wear, coincidentally, told me everything I needed to know about the problem that needed addressing.

The tires on your vehicle can tell you a ton about what’s going on with your steering and suspension. I want to walk you through a quick and dirty but thorough guide to tire wear.

I’m going to show you how to read tread wear along with tire wear patterns and tire wear pictures. Let’s start with the tread wear indicator. If the tread wear indicator is even with the tire treads, then it is time to replace your tires.

Cupping is caused by worn out shocks or struts. This causes the vehicle to bounce up and down as it travels down the road which creates more pressure on certain points of the tire.

Center wear is caused by over inflation. This is where the middle of the tire contacts the road as opposed to it being evenly distributed over the entire surface of the tire.

Outer edge wear is caused by under inflation. When your tires get to this point it will start to negatively affect your gas mileage so immediate action is required.

Single side wear is caused by your vehicle’s camber settings being out of whack. Worn ball joints or springs can cause this or you may just need an alignment.

Diagonal swipe wear is something that is seen on front wheel drive vehicles that have bad or incorrect toe settings. Another victim can be trucks that carry heavy loads.

Heal-toe wear is another common one that is caused by improper tire rotations. It can also be caused by the separation of the steel belts inside the tire and worn ball joints and bushings.

Another pattern to watch for is “feathering”. This happens on the outer edge of the tire where you can see valleys and sharp points in between the treads. This is mainly caused by bad toe settings.
Flat spots can be caused by the car sitting for a long period of time and more commonly seen on older cars that don’t have anti-lock brakes.

All of these represent the major signs and symptoms of tire wear patterns and tire failure and what causes these to happen.

JP Auto & Fleet Services
4 Tanglewood Drive
Lake Dallas, TX 75065
214-836-9333
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   • Tire Wear Pattern And Causes  

   / @jpautofleetservices1594