can tires with uneven tread wear end up evening out if the issue is fixed?

A

apollo18

Joined
May 27, 2023
Messages
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hey all, if a tire has tread ranging between 8/32 and 7.25 / 32, and i end up fixing the issue that was causing the uneven tread wear. is it possible that overtime the tire will wear evening and then have same tread/similar tread at various spots?

or will the side that had 8/32 always have more tread then the side that had 7.25 /32 ?

hope that makes sense

thx
 
Is it possible? Of course! But that doesn't mean it will always happen. By fixing the issue you've changed, evened out, the forces on the tire. Rotating tires is based on the same principle, and it does extend tire life. The sooner you catch the uneven wear, the better your chances.
 
Assuming the tire pressure, alignment, etc. all stay correct, the are of the tire with less tread depth will always have less tread depth.

Think of it this way. Now that you have corrected things, tread wear should be even. If it stays even, then you will always have the same amount of wear across the tire. Many thousands of miles from now, assuming you wear off 4/32 at an even rate, then the area that is now 8/32 will b e 4/32, and the area that is now 7.25/32 will be 3.25/32.
 
Does anyone have a car that wears all 4 tires equally? Probably the closest vehicle I had that did that, had a solid rear axle, everything else with independent rear suspension has visible rear toe in and negative camber has always worn the inside of the rears faster.
I would just keep rotating the tires and carry on.
 
Is 7.25 vs 8 even uneven?
The tires are worn this way and to achieve equal tread depth you would need to set geometry to even wear out. That will not be correct geometry for the driving. Such geometry may not even exist and the only way to even the wear would be to shave the tires. But at such low discrepancy why bother?

Krzyś
 
krzyss said:
Is 7.25 vs 8 even uneven?
The tires are worn this way and to achieve equal tread depth you would need to set geometry to even wear out. That will not be correct geometry for the driving. Such geometry may not even exist and the only way to even the wear would be to shave the tires. But at such low discrepancy why bother?

Krzyś
Click to expand...
"even uneven." Ha!
 
While the question makes sense, you’re measuring factions of 1/32” - and I’m not certain I would consider that small amount to be in the realm of “significant difference”. My simple tire depth gauge is marked in 1/32” and mm. Your difference is 1/2 a mm, or so, and that’s between lines on the depth gauge.

Do you see any pattern, like cupping? Or angling of the tread blocks?

My old truck would “feather” the leading edge of the blocks despite all new suspension parts, including control arm bushings, and despite rotation, that feathering would stay on the tire.

That experience supports what @CapriRacer said - the new wear (and pattern, if any) happens on top of the old one. So, in your case, a perfectly even wear pattern from a corrected suspension will result in that 7.25/32 part always being a hair shallower than the 8/32 part.

But it’s so small of a difference, that I wouldn’t sweat it.
 
I've seen feathered tires wear smooth again. If you can rotate the tire so it feathers the other direction, then the feathering will cancel out after a while. Most wear patterns don't go away, but some can if you're lucky.

I've also noticed that tires with deeper tread and individual tread blocks (instead of ribs with little grooves in the edge) can feather if the tire only transfers force in one direction (like a front tire only used for braking will feather one direction and one on the back of a rwd truck with lots of torque will feather the other direction. Most all terrain and highway tires don't feather just from torque because the tread pieces are supported or connected, and they're harder compound than mud tires.
 
totegoat said:
Same here.
Click to expand...
What vehicles do you have and what's your rotation interval? All my winter tires are directional, so I just put the fronts to the rear every fall, which is ~8-10k miles.
The all-seasons I tend to do the same, front to back, but may end up swapping sides or not. I don't mark them. The Outback rear tends to wear the inside edges so all four all seasons are about 4/32 on the inside and 5 to 5.5/32 on the outsides with ~50k miles on them. Its not quite worth getting the tires flipped as after this summer these tires will be done, and the proper alignment produces this wear pattern?
 
IndyIan said:
Does anyone have a car that wears all 4 tires equally? Probably the closest vehicle I had that did that, had a solid rear axle, everything else with independent rear suspension has visible rear toe in and negative camber has always worn the inside of the rears faster.
I would just keep rotating the tires and carry on.
Click to expand...

My focus did very well but I rotated the tires every oil change and most of the miles were highway with rarely anybody else in the car. I did get the expected miles out of every set of tires too.
 
I had a manual tire mounter at home and flipped tires on the rims because the car dead nuts on spec would wear the outer edge, gave me an robably an extra 5000 miles and the inner and outer edges looked very similar once I retired the tires.

Still too much edge wear but that’s what new cars seem to do, can put 60psi in the tires and the edges still wear faster than they should.

In another car the front would cup tires, put them on the rear at lower pressure, tires were still cupped but not as noticeable
 
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