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Irregular Tire Wear: Causes,Indicators and Remedies How to recognize,diagnose and fix the most common tire wear issues By Sean Phillips Irregular tire wear is a frustrating little gremlin that can steal your tires' performance and tread life if you let it. The problem is that irregular wear comes in so many different flavors. The causes of strange tire wear can range from air pressure to improper balance,from misalignment to bent wheels. Here's how to recognize the problem,how to tell where it's coming from and what to do about it. Causes: * Air Pressure: Improper air pressure will cause tires to wear in specific patterns according to whether the tire is over-pressured or under-pressured. * Balance Issues: Improper balance will cause the tire to spin with a wobble due to unbalanced centrifugal forces Car Diagnostic Tool. This wobble will cause the tire to wear improperly and probably show up as a vibration as well. * Bent Wheels: A bent wheel,in addition to probably causing a vibration in the car,will also affect the wear on its tire and can even affect the wear on the other tires as well. As the bead of the tire follows the contour of the wheel,the bend in wheel will be mirrored by the tire's shoulder tread as the whole sidewall dips to follow the bend. This can cause all kinds of strange wear. * Alignment: A 4-point alignment (as opposed to a front-end alignment) essentially ensures that the tires are all parallel to each other and flat to the pavement,giving the tires their optimal wear profile. If the alignment is incorrect,any number of wear patterns can develop. Additionally,the kind of impact that will bend a wheel will generally also knock the alignment out,creating a tire wear situation that basically feeds on itself. Wear Patterns: * One Shoulder: If only one of the shoulders is excessively worn,the cause is generally alignment,specifically incorrect camber. The tire is tilted to one side or the other and putting too much pressure on the shoulder. By the time this kind of wear becomes obvious,it can often be too late for any remedy short of replacing the tire and then realigning,although sometimes the tire can be rotated to the opposite side or flipped on the wheel.The pressure on the sidewall is a maximum safe pressure,not a recommendation. If pressure is not the issue,it may be that your tires are too wide for the wheels. * Spot Shoulder: If one of the shoulders is excessively worn in only one spot,this is almost certainly due to a bent wheel or a bent steel belt inside the tire. * Lateral Wear: Lateral wear causes the tire to wobble from side to side as it spins. This is almost always an alignment issue Car Tools store,specifically an incorrect toe setting."Toe"is the degree to which the tires are not parallel to the direction of the car. A wheel that is"toed-in"is slanted towards the car,while a"toed-out"wheel slants away. The classic toe issue is the one that has both front tires toed to the same direction,which will cause the car to pull towards one side or the other when you let go of the wheel in the age-old,do-I-need-an-alignment test. But there is also an issue when two opposite tires are either both toed-in or both toed-out. This will not cause the car to pull appreciably,because both tires are now fighting each other,putting lateral pressure on each other,and possibly creating a tremendously annoying kind of juddering vibration in the car. This kind of wear can occur surprisingly fast,but if caught quickly enough can wear back in very fast as well once the alignment is corrected.  As always with tires and wheels,an ounce of prevention can be worth a pound of cure. The best preventatives for odd tire wear are really fairly simple;monitor your air pressures,align the car whenever new tires go on and rotate the tires regularly.
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