Toyman!
MegaDork
12/18/23 11:04 a.m.
I've seen a lot of damaged tires. I've never seen one that was diagonally striped like this one. This was seen in traffic on the rear of a small econobox. If it was a straight stripe in one spot I'd say it was locked up but this one is striped all the way around with parallel diagonal wear stripes. The other tires on the car looked fine and the car was tracking straight. Usually, when a belt in a tire fails, it's only one and it's noticeable by the bulge and wobble. This tire looks like every other belt has failed but it was rolling as smooth as the tire on the opposite side. At any rate, I thought you gents might find this interesting.
buzzboy
UltraDork
12/18/23 11:11 a.m.
Worn out shocks will cause a diagonal stripe.
That used to be called old woman wear (German equivalent) on 80s Golfs/Jettas because the large amount of negative camber and toe in would cause the tires to do weird things in low impact city driving.
Used to be extremely common when front drive cars weighed so little that the back end could be picked up by hand, and they used extreme camber and toe in the back to keep the light rears from allowing easy spinouts.
The main cause is not rotating the tires every 3000 miles.
Looks like a beam axle car, vaguely asian-ish. If the rear shocks are done, and its one of the Korean ideas of super short shocks and spring travel it's probably doing some weird bouncy crap.
Toyman!
MegaDork
12/19/23 7:43 a.m.
It's not a wear pattern I've ever noticed before. Naturally, you gents knew exactly what it was.
Thanks for the insight.
That looks to be a Mazda 2.
Light, beam axle. So that fits the bill.
CyberEric said:
That looks to be a Mazda 2.
Light, beam axle. So that fits the bill.
Never rotate the tires, front tires wear out every 10,000 miles or less because they do all the steering turning and braking, rear tires get diagonal swiping (the correct term)
It isn't even a beam axle thing. BG chassis Ford Econoboxs were really bad for it too. Used to sell a lot of full 175/65-14 sets when the fronts would be bald and the rears had 8/32 in the high spots.
Newer cars have a lot more weight so the rear tires can scrub evenly in tight corners (no Ackerman in a non steering axle) instead of hop and bounce. That is why, say, Golfs were a lot worse for it than Jettas.
Front wheel drive 2017 Escape with bald front tires
