Tall Giraffe

Towards the end of my front tire life, I always seem to have this wear pattern. Tires when new, are road forced and I only align at the dealer. Its the only service I do there. I think the outer wear is cornering but what causes the chop in the inner side? The wheel shimmys at highway speed.

bbirdwell

Tire is unbalanced. Depending upon mileage you may have suspension components that are worn; ball joints, bushings, tie rod ends.

ygmn

those tires are past due as you have worn down the wear bars...
get news ones and alignment checked as always with new tires.

kajtek1

This is European car >>> negative camber design for hard cornering.
When you drive like grandma, inner edger will always get more wear.
That tire looks like under inflated as well.

nelbur

A scalloped wear pattern usually indicates that the tire has been run for a good while with an out of balanced condition, in my opinion. Even if you balanced it now, you would feel the roughness from the scallops.

FlatlineEF9

If my tires wore like that, id consider myself blessed lol

Tall Giraffe

Thanks for all the responses. Seems like the consensus is wheel balancing. I have replaced upper and lower control arms, ball joints, and inner and outer tie rods. Shocks and springs are left and when those are changed Ill go back over those replaced components again.

Would out of tolerance wheel bearing play contribute as well?

nelbur

I assume that by, "out of tolerance" you are talking about improperly adjusted. Bearings are made to very close tolerances and would not cause strange tire wear even if they were quite loose. Springs also would not contribute to strange tire wear. Shocks, to the extent that they allow the tires to jump up and down due to an out of balance condition, could contribute to the balance caused tire wear.

It is very common for wheel weights to come off, leaving balanced tires out of balance. Just because you had the tires balanced does not mean that they stay balanced. Not long ago I had a new set of tires installed and shortly afterward I found a new looking wheel weight laying on my driveway. It matched the weights on the new tires so I went back and had them re-balance all the tires, since there was no way to know which tire the weight came from. I recently found a scolloped tire on one of my vehicles. Rather than having it re-balanced, I added some tire balancing beads to that tire to stop the wear. I can still feel the vibration from the scollops. Time will tell if it wears round again. I am a scientist by training and like experiments.

kajtek1

For whatever it is worth- the ***** or powder balancing really works.
I cheapen out and put air gun pellets in 1 set of wheels.
Disadvantage was some noise when rolling and the pellets took above 10 mph to set, but then you don't have any balancing problems thru the life of the tires.
For those living in dump climate, observing dryenest of pumped air might be important.

Tall Giraffe

Well the reason why I asked about the wheel bearings, is because there is a procedure for adjustment in WIS. While I agree that new bearings would be close to spec, mine with over 150K miles might not be. I do believe that in my case however that would not single handedly cause my type of tire wear. Maybe very little shimmy but first I have to get new rubber and a proper balancing to tell. Thanks again

Katjtek1, Im definitely looking into trying this method upon replacing my tires.

nelbur

I have now put about 900 miles on the tire after adding a small amount of tire balancing beads (1 oz) Initially I lost the vibration from the small out of balance condition but could still feel the buzz from the scollops. After about 500 miles I could not really feel the buzz. I have just checked the tire and found no evidence of the scollops. The scollops were modest to start with but I jacked up the tire and inspected it all the way around, and the scollops are totally gone. I believe I will start adding a small amount of tire balancing beads to new tires, in addition to checking the lug torque and tire pressure, when I get home from the installation..

srh

From my experience, the balancing beads work really well on large diameter tires. I have them on my motorhome that are on 22.5" rims. When I first put them on, because they worked so well, I anxiously did the same thing (putting them in) my Ford SportTrac tires. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me at all. I had to take it back to the shop and ask them to take them out. It is also conceivable that I may not have put in enough beads. For my motorhome tires which are 295/80R/22.5, it calls for 12 ozs per tire. Just a thought!

kajtek1

In my motorhome 22.5 wheels I had Centramatic rings on front, who operates on the same principle the beads inside the tires do.
rear dualles don't require balancing most of the time.

MBkid30

nelbur

I have heard of others that have had problems with the beads. It is such a simple process that I don't see how they could cause problems. My guess is that the beads were dropped in while still in the bag, and the bag failed to break, or the bag interfered with the distribution of the beads. 12 oz. sounds excessive. I think 4 oz. is considered normal for a car tire and your tire is maybe twice the weight so around 8 oz. would seem reasonable. My approach was to do the regular balance and add a small amount of beads through the valve so the beads could keep the balance correct as the tire wears. The problem with my approach is that the tire has to be jacked up so the bead does not unseat, and the process of feeding the beads through the valve can be a bit fiddly, but once done it should last for the life of the tire.

srh

I have used dyna beads on several tires and different coaches, and put in the amount shown on various bead manufacturer websites like this one:
http://www.innovativebalancing.com/c...ommercialChart

Strigoi

I've put BBs in the tires on my RC crawlers before. Not for balance, but for some added weight to the front ends.