Gents, today I noticed a strange anomaly in the wear pattern of my front tires. They're Michelin Pilot A/S Plus in 245/45-19. Along the shoulders, of the tire, there appears to be what looks like small rips in the rubber compound.

I'm running a completely stock suspension with no drop, other than upgraded wheels to 19x8.5 front, 19x9.5 rear.

I have the car aligned (by Infiniti) regularly and it's always not very far out of spec. I don't drive hard on the tires. They do have 42K miles on them.

I'm hoping this is more that I'm reaching the end of their usable service life than an alignment problem. Car has never been wrecked and I'm always careful about bumps, etc. I did 3 years time working for Discount Tire in college but never saw anything like this.

I also find it strange that I'm getting more wear on the shoulders than evenly across the tire. I run 36psi cold in the fronts which should even my wear out more and that fact is leading me to believe I may have an alignment issue.

ImageShack - Michelin.JPG

 

Since this is a recent development have you hit any jarring potholes or something that may have knocked your toe, looks like your tires may be fighting the road which is usually a toe issue. Although at 42k it might just be tired rubber
Interested to hear what your alignment is currently. You also might want to go to a different shop for your alignment unless you have some deal w/ your dealer.
Interested to hear what you find out.

 

Thanks for the input. I'm due to get it checked again. Hoping the toe doesn't drift that far out of spec on our cars. I've hit a few of those areas where they cut a hole in the road and then put a sheet of 1" steel over it until they're done but I always go over those quite slowly. Don't really know who to go to in the Dallas area besides the dealer. But I may switch dealers and see how that works.

 

Might shoot a PM to Soundmike, he may not be coming around much since he's selling his G but worth a shot. I'm sure he knows some good shops.

 

Thanks bl. Man that's a bummer. I always enjoyed his posts, always informative but there's MANY of y'all that post great stuff and that's what makes this forum so good.

 

Ygpm sir.

Brad, you funny.