How to Diagnose Irregular Tire Wear
Monitoring your tires' tread patterns is an essential part of keeping your automobile safe. Reading the wear patterns on your tires is a lot easier if you're familiar with the different kinds of wear. Knowing what to look for helps you spot irregular tread patterns, which in turn gets you car into a shop and safely back onto the road in as little time as possible.
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Instructions
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Check your tires for undulating cups or scallops along the outside edges. These usually appear when one of your car's suspension parts are worn or bent.
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Run your fingers across the tire's surface and see if the ridges have one sharp edge and one smooth edge. This is called "feathering" and indicates a toe-in problem with your car.
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Look for second-rib wear. If the second rings of your radial tires are noticeably more worn than the others, then your tires may be too big for your wheels.
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Watch the tires for one-sided wear. When one of a tire's sides is lower than the other, your wheel alignment's off and needs to be fixed.
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Keep your tires inflated to their manufacturer-recommended air pressures. Improperly inflated tires often develop wear patterns that cause dangerous tread erosion and can lead to blowouts.
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Tips & Warnings
When in doubt, take your car into a shop and have a specialist check out your tires.
Monitor your tire pressure once a week to catch any slow-draining leaks before they cause permanent damage.
