A few days ago I noticed my front tire looked a tad low on air – I didn’t think much of it and planned to add some air this weekend. Yesterday I woke up to find a flat tire - I figured it was a nail or something, and went to change it. Upon getting the tire off, I noticed that the inside edge was split open about a third of the way around, there was heavy wear another third of the way around, and the rest looked fairly normal. That gave me a chill because I had been happily motoring along the parkway at 70mph the previous evening – I’m lucky it didn’t fall apart on me (especially since I also discovered the spare had no air in it, has a dent on the inner edge, and a hairline crack to boot.) After getting the spare filed up and onto the car, I checked the passenger side tire, and it has a similar wear pattern, but hasn’t quite split open yet. It too looked a bit low on air (when I checked it was at 22psi), so I put it back up to 32psi, and its holding steady there.

So far the spare is holding its air, and I ordered a new fluted rim on EvileBay for $175 and two new Fuzion HRi tires for the front ($89 each.) I guess I won’t be driving it much until those arrive in a few days and get put on.

A quick look around didn’t reveal anything obviously loose or worn under there. I searched for Camber on here, but all those posts seem to refer to the rear tires, which appear to be fine, and they say the camber isn’t adjustable anyway. The car is a 2003 sport with 53,000 miles on it, and the tires looked new when I bought it with 35k 18 months ago. I hadn’t noticed anything funny with the steering or alignment, everything was very smooth and it tracks like it is on rails.

Is it possible under-inflation may have led to this condition? And why the uneven 1/3 split open, 1/3 scalloped, 1/3 normal wear pattern – that’s just weird… Maybe the car sat for a while, and the tires got lumpy – but I would think that would show up as wobbly in the steering/alignment. Anybody run into anything like this before?

(The first pic shows the outer edge - nothing wrong there, plenty of tread. the second pic shows the 'heavy wear" section where the edge is scalloped out, and the third pic below shows the 1/3 that split open once the edge wore through.)

 

You would think you would always want to run the tires at the manufactures recommended rate. But I had a similar problem with my X type. I eventually bought new tires for it. Seems to be something I have noticed on a few of them when I was looking at them yrs ago. Probably something to keep an eye on though.

 

That is so extremely on the very edge that I'm not even sure it's a camber problem and could be more of a tire problem. I would think a camber problem would start a little further in toward the center and then to the edge. That is as if it is right on the edge itself?? The camber would have to be pretty severely out to cause that. The 1/3, 1/3 thing might be broken belts inside.

Not familiar with Fuzion tires, but maybe think about investing more in your tires. Then at least have that alignment checked...you could have worn brearings or suspension parts.

 

I had the same issue with my 03 S-type. I hadn't noticed the wear, because it was on the inside edge. At an oil change, of course, the upselling attendant let me know that I better not drive away on the tires. It sounds simple, but a wheel alignment was promised to fix the uneven wear.

 

That is due to rubbing right? That's not road wear.

 

It looks like rub to me. I had a car that the tires were too wide and rubbed the strut up front. Is it the factory tire size? I won't make that mistake again of going wider on stock wheels if there already isn't much clearance. If you're looking for inexpensive tires as a replacement that are quality, I'd recommend Federal SS595s.

 

its an '03 sport with 17x7" factory stock rims. I hadn't thought of rubbing, but since everything in the front end of these cars is so damn tight, I suppose I wouldn't be surprised. the wear occurred right on the corner - not on the sidewall, and not on the tread, right smack dab on the edge. The rub in all of these is that none explain the uneven wear you can see in the picture - it is worn clear through about a third of the way around - but not all the way around. That's the wackness of it.

Amyway, the new rim and new tires arrived today, Im'a get 'em put on tomorrow. Yippie!!!

 

That's exactly what my GTO did with wider tires. I'd have your alignment double checked and just feel around the backside of the wheel with it mounted and then turn it lock to lock and check at both extremes.

 

This is a pretty common problem. I fought with it on my X for years as did many others. I eventually had the toe set to 0 or as close as possible to 0 when doing an alignment and that seemed to greatly help in reducing the extreme inner tire wear of the front tires.