Tire advice..

I have some Goodrich AT tires on my suburban. I bought one of them from Sam’s club.. and I thought that this tire had a shifted belt..

so I took it there this morning.. the tire guy says I’ll look at it.. go into the store and I will call you..

so I go and walk the store for a while and no call.. so I walk back to the tire desk.. He says, “its not a belt, but the tire is “out of balance” .. and he says that they haven’t been rotated.. and the tire is scalloped.. well I am sure that I balanced that tire when I bought it..

and then he says that putting the tire in the back.. it will smooth out the scallop.. what? … is this the case?

this just doesn’t seem right.. if the tire is damaged should they have replaced it? he didn’t even give me a chance.. he said that his boss used to work at tires plus and that’s exactly what he would have done..

advise please.. lots of advise..

The term scallop I sure refers to tire “cupping” (As I’ve know it), I’ve always had issue with it on my Ford, since the lower ball joints are inferior, the tires move around a little in corners and wear unevenly.

Bottom line is some tires are more apt to cup (scallop) and a lot of times it’s caused by the car/truck/bike and can certainly be influenced by driving style, (some say I take corners too fast, way too fast )

I do think moving it to the back is acceptable in my book.

Just my two cents – I own a 2001 Yukon XL (same as a suburban) and the Firestone Wilderness tires on it are cupping. I’ve put almost 50K on them so I can’t complain, but maybe there is something inherent in the GM suspension that causes tires to wear unevenly. I’ve rotated several times so not sure what the issue is. Would be interesting to hear from someone in the industry.
Pete

I’ve had tires “cup” on both Fords and GMC’s. The prevention is to rotate them frequently. The more aggressive the tire, the more noticeable it is. Severely “cupped” tires create more road noise and a vibration in the vehicle.

Moving them to the back helps, that evens out the wear. You’ll eventually have to move them back to the front again however.

I believe “cupping” is routinely caused by other suspension problem such as bad shocks.

I’m running an old Chevy diesel pickup and it has the most even tire wear I have ever owned (go figure). I think tire cupping is caused by other problems in the vehicle and I would rotate it to the back. That will give you a pretty quick answer if the tires in the front begin to cup.

Used to be that the vehicles with 4wd and an auto engaging front end would cup the front tires. Not knowing what yours is, I’d guess it’s something on that order that’s causing your problem. The only solution I ever saw was to rotate them every-other oil change. jerr

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I’ve had tires “cup” on both Fords and GMC’s. The prevention is to rotate them frequently. The more aggressive the tire, the more noticeable it is. Severely “cupped” tires create more road noise and a vibration in the vehicle.

Moving them to the back helps, that evens out the wear. You’ll eventually have to move them back to the front again however.

I believe “cupping” is routinely caused by other suspension problem such as bad shocks.

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BINGO….new shocks on my Chevy K1500 did slow down the cupping problem. Rotating often is also a must, especially with 4X4.

There are some vehicles, mostly 4×4’s that no matter what tire you put on will cup if they are not rotated often. By often I mean every other oil change–6,000 miles.

I work for Goodyear and everyone is somewhat correct as to the “cupping”. Some tread designs are more prone to chop, especially the ones with big open tread blocks on the sholders. Lack of rotation and a camber shift in your alignment on corners causes most of the problems. Taking clover leaf ramps with a 4×4 at higher speeds causes the camber to go way positive and causes the tire to dribble around the corner. Rotating tires to the rear doesn’t correct or even out tire wear, it’s just less annoying in the rear. If when driving down the road you look at the vehicle ahead of you and the tires are dribbling, very rapid up and down movement, that is a cupped tire. The cupped tire will never get better because instead of being round it has multiple edges which magnify the dribble. Throw them away and start over, rotate ever other oil change and have the alignment checked.

Its a bummer but I try to rotate every 5-7k.

Also make sure you are always running the prpoer amount of air pressure.

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Also make sure you are always running the prpoer amount of air pressure.

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