Maybe when they look like THIS?


OK... I think it's time... but when I pulled it, it looked like this...



Let's count belts, shall we? Jeezus! All the way through all the outer cord belts, both steel belts, and into the innner plies... you could probably pop this like a balloon...



I rotated every 5000 miles. 2500 miles ago they looked fine - shoulders still had a bit of tread left, but I knew I was getting close. But I happened to take a looksee a couple of weeks ago, and could see the first poly belt on one - just a tiny spot on the inside left shoulder - not really down to the wear bars in the rest of the tread... OK, time for tires. Finally got my new tires/wheels ready to install today - pulled the wheels, and found this.... YIKES.... I can't believe it hasn't blown out already... my guardian angel's watching out for me, I guess...

These are the OE Dunlop SP Sport 9000 DSST runflats, with 18,000 HARD miles on them.... but when they decided to go, they went FAST...

So, friends... check your rubber OFTEN...

I was REALLY surprised to see the inner shoulders wear down so abruptly before the rest of the tire - I had alignment checked, and am within the "stock" limits - a little negative camber, a little toe in, etc. Never would have expected this, though...

 

Heat and friction will do a rubber product in, as we all know.

Good you checked and are practicing safe driving.

 

Your tires are thoroughly worn out. Negative camber and toe often will wear tires. If both outer edges are more worn than the center tread then you may have been under inflated at some point.

Are you the original owner? If not then maybe the camber had been more negative in the past.

What are you going to replace them with?

 

definitely time to get new tires and maybe an alignment check.

 

Yep, I think you're right. How can you tell. jk

I've stayed on top of pressures pretty well... I'm gonna run a couple of PSI higher on my new tires to see how that works out (used to run 36/35, gonna run 38/36 or so). But I drive like some people autocross... so I'm not really too surprised, I guess...

Yep. Original Owner. Never changed suspension from stock (other than rear sway). All alignment is within stock ranges, except a little extra toe on front right - getting that fixed next week.
Kumho Ecsta SPT 215/45ZR17. Much higher treadwear rating than the Dunlops...

Yep. Like I said in first post - I installed new tires today... and had alignment checked last week - OK.

 

Its about time to be thinking of snow tires here, but I plan on getting new summer tires in the spring. Let us know how you like the Kumho's please.
Oh and I think your tires have a little more life in them - ever heard of a tire swing?

 

I "guess" you are hard on tires.

Kumho Ecsta SPT is a good one.

A little higher (2 psi) on your tires would be a good strategy.

Maybe you can put "super shoe goo" on your outer treads once they get down past 3/32 inch of tread.

Hey, might as well enjoy your Ultra high performance tires to the "full extent"... down to the cords, that is.

 

akkk, just take a sharpie and make those belts black and you're good to go.

 

Well done.

 

It's all M7's fault!

Oh, wait -- wrong thread....

Do you think that your 843 trips to the Dragon would have anything to do with it?

 

Will do. Several guys in our club here swear by them - the SPTs, and the ASXs for all season. Alas, they're discontinuing the SPTs I hear, to release a new tire - hopefully it will be as good...
I tried that - but the kids kept whining about the steel belts cutting up their legs. Pansies. (cut my hand pretty good pulling that wheel off, that's how I found out I had exposed steel...)



Amen to that!

Plus a little Hydro. Good as new.

Yep. If it was a steak, it would be shoe leather - like my dad used to cook'em.

Only two Dragon trips on those tires. But when you ride with Blimey, a "boring" commute is like a ride on the Dragon. Just ask my father-in-law who rode to Home Depot with me one day, and swore he'd never get in my car again... (bwahahaha - by evil strategy WORKED). Until you generate some better worn tires on your Black Forest runs, you can STFU about them.

 

I'd say you didn't leave anything on the table with those.....

 

You are very lucky you didn't have to start a ***I just wrecked my MINI*** thread. You need to get in the habit of checking air pressure & inspecting your tires. Every other week seems appropriate.

 

Yep, agreed.

I thought I DID have that habit... I've definitely been on top of pressure... and visually inspecting what I could see... but the inside shoulders (which aren't easy to see) snuck up on me... though, again, 2 weeks earlier I pulled this particular wheel OFF THE CAR and it was far from this kind of (agreed dangerous) wear...

 

Well Paul, I've been told that once a tire wears down through the tread into the carcase of the tire the wear accelerates rapidly. My guess is that is what caught you out.

My rule is at 3/32" I replace the tires on a street car. If the tires are old I will also replace regardless of tread depth.

 

I'm not arguing.... really... I agree...

Last rotation (8 weeks ago) still had 3/32+ everywhere except a bit of shoulder had a little less - but still had tread - not into wear bars in center tread on any tire.

Two weeks ago - discovered one tire had a tiny bit of cord showing in one spot - rotated it off the front and immediately scheduled alignment to ensure something funny wasn't going on, and started checking price/availability on tires.

One week ago - had alignment checked, and ordered tires.

Had tires mounted day they came in. Went to install on car the next day, and this was the condition...

I'm really thinking this is (to some degree) an unusual wear condition at least helped along a bit by the runflat sidewalls... I'm not trying to abdicate all responsibility for driving on a tire that looked like that - I'm not proud of it, and am pretty freaked out by it... but, as I said in the first post, I too encourage folks to check their tires OFTEN and THOROUGHLY because they can go south quickly. In 25 years and probably 500,000 miles of driving personally, I've never seen a tire go from borderline to "HOLY CARP!" so quickly...

 

I didn't think you were.

You may be onto something. Those rock hard sidewalls may cause unusual wear.

 

I had a similar situation just last week! I noticed belt showing on the inside of my left rear. These Nokian Zs have 37,600 on them. Rotated every 6-9000 miles (got a little behind a couple times).

Still decent tread on the outside edge and the other three aren't nearly as bad.

 

Holy carp!!!! It's a darned epidemic of camber induced baldness.

 

WOW!!! That tire beats me in the asymetric wear category... Blimey... You could cut two tires like that in half and shoegoo the good halves together and have a new tire...

 

WHOA!! I'm thinkin' you could have just swapped those side to side and gotten another 37k out of the other halves.

The cupping makes me think you've got some other alignment/balance issue going on there.

 

man, wat happened to the wear bars? suppose to see white lines going
across the tires...

 

Steel belts are HAWT, LOL!

 

I check my tires everytime I get home with a simple feel accross the tread of each. One note about having the tire flipped on the rim to offset camber wear: The tire will wear faster if you do this, but it will last longer than if you leave it alone. So it is good to flip the tire with heavy inner wear, just start tire shopping once you do.

 

guys, get a magnet tool with mirror and a flash light. only takes a second
to check inner tire wear AND inner sidewalls.

here's a pict. you can get these from Griot's or i got the same one from Sears.