help on reading the tire wear bars
Thread Starter
Newbie
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 13
Likes: 0
From: Orange County
Subaru STI
help on reading the tire wear bars
Hi all,
I have a set of 18 inch Michelin Pilot Sport tires and have been driving it for a year. I wonder how do you read the wear bar on these tires? I see that I have wear bars marked on the two center channels of the tire and inside and outside shoulder of the tire, but I found the center wear bars are about to touch the surface and inside and outside ones are not. So I am really confused about whether my tires are wearing out.
Thank you for all your advice.
I have a set of 18 inch Michelin Pilot Sport tires and have been driving it for a year. I wonder how do you read the wear bar on these tires? I see that I have wear bars marked on the two center channels of the tire and inside and outside shoulder of the tire, but I found the center wear bars are about to touch the surface and inside and outside ones are not. So I am really confused about whether my tires are wearing out.
Thank you for all your advice.
Senior Member
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 291
Likes: 0
From: Portland, OR
2001 CLK320
wear bars
you're getting close to having worn out tires from the sounds of it...
With the center wearing, it indicates that you have an over-inflation symptom. With excess inflation pressure, the center of the tire 'bulges out' more than the sides and gets more wear.
If you ran under-inflated, the sides would wear more (inside and outside edge) with center having more wear.
The optimum is to have even wear across the entire tread surface. There can be a little more wear on the edges if you do a lot of low-speed in town driving with more turning, parking lot manuevers, etc.
You do want to replace 'em, because you'll hydroplane in the rain!
With the center wearing, it indicates that you have an over-inflation symptom. With excess inflation pressure, the center of the tire 'bulges out' more than the sides and gets more wear.
If you ran under-inflated, the sides would wear more (inside and outside edge) with center having more wear.
The optimum is to have even wear across the entire tread surface. There can be a little more wear on the edges if you do a lot of low-speed in town driving with more turning, parking lot manuevers, etc.
You do want to replace 'em, because you'll hydroplane in the rain!
