The 3 Types of Tire Wear: Deceptive Sales Tactics or Real Danger?

When you bring your car in for service, an inspection may reveal any of the three common tire wear patterns occurring on your vehicle. You may have heard of them before: tire feathering, cupping, and balding.

If your service advisor brings these to your attention, you may wonder if they’re just trying to sell you on a new set of tires. But are these wear patterns legitimately dangerous?

In this article, we’ll explore the 3 common types of tire wear and why you should heavily consider replacing your tires if they’re showing any of these wear patterns.

1. Tire Balding:

The most well-known and common type of tire wear is tire balding, where the tire tread has simply become substantially worn through regular usage. Tires will naturally lose tread over time, but you can generally estimate the life cycle of a fresh set of tires to be about 50,000 miles.

However, various factors like improper tire inflation, worn or damaged suspension, improper alignment, and an aggressive driving style can cause balding to happen faster than it should and even on less visible areas of the tire. These symptoms, when caught by a vehicle inspection, may lead you to believe you are being upsold to by a service advisor.

Types of Tire Balding:

Any amount of balding on any area of the tires can be dangerous, as it drastically increases stopping distance and decreases traction, especially in weather and under hard braking, accelerating, or turning.

It’s important to carefully consider your service advisor’s observations and prioritize the safety of you and others on the road when servicing your vehicle.

Plan ahead and replace your tires before balding even occurs, as driving becomes dangerous long before the tread is completely gone.

2. Tire Feathering

Tire feathering is a lesser-known, less visible form of excessive tire wear. It appears as many small flakes of tire peeling off the edges to one side of the tread, leading to a feather-like texture on that edge.

Despite its different appearance, tire feathering can happen for the same reasons as tire balding and other types of tire wear. Improper inflation, misalignment, damaged suspension, and a hard driving style can all cause feathering to appear.

Indicators of Tire Feathering:

Tire feathering can be more difficult to spot than balding, but it is equally as dangerous. Feathering reduces the contact surface between your car’s tires and the road, and can even cause wheels to go out of balance leading to vibration, shaking, and an overall rougher ride.

Follow your service advisor’s recommendations if tire feathering is found during your vehicle inspection. If feathering is caught early enough, it’s possible that it can be corrected with an alignment or repairs or replacements of worn suspension components.

3. Tire Cupping

Another lesser-known and less common type of tire wear is tire cupping. Tire cupping appears as large, U-shaped divots in the tire tread, like a scoop of rubber taken out of the tire. Tire cupping can appear along the outside edge of the tire or interspersed through the entire tread area, depending on the cause.

Again, this form of tire wear can be caused by a misaligned vehicle, worn or damaged suspension components, or an aggressive driving style.

Indicators of Tire Cupping:

Tire cupping is usually fairly easy to spot and can cause extremely noticeable driving issues. Due to high and low spots on the tire, a bumpy and unstable ride accompanied by a regular thumping noise at lower speeds or a low growling sound at higher speeds usually indicates cupping.

Tire cupping is extremely dangerous—imagine driving on tires shaped like octagons instead of circles. Cupped tires have a drastically reduced contact area with the road and innately make a vehicle unstable to drive due to their non-circular shape. Follow the recommendations of your service advisor if cupping is evident on your tires.

The Dangers of Driving with Tire Wear

Any of the 3 main types of tire wear detailed today can put you and other drivers in danger. Tires exhibiting tire balding, feathering, or cupping, have less traction and leave your vehicle prone to slipping and sliding under heavy acceleration, braking, and turning.

Poor driving conditions like rain, snow, ice, or gravel and dirt roads only worsen these issues. Remember that continuing to drive on tires with heavy tire wear puts you and other driver’s in harm’s way. A longer braking distance leaves you susceptible to rear-ending other vehicles or colliding with obstacles in the street. Even making a quick maneuver to avoid an obstacle could send you spinning out.

If your vehicle is exhibiting tire balding, feathering, cupping, or other signs of excessive tire wear, consider making a service appointment with H+H Chevrolet, H+H Kia, or H+H Jeep Dodge Ram. Our friendly and experienced service advisors will help you get back on the road safely.

Got good tires but want to be better prepared for poor driving conditions? Check out our ultimate guide to winterizing your vehicle.