Pre-mature tire wear

[Shane Teague]

Friends,

I have a car scrubbing off tires.

What would be all of the things I would inspect to thoughly troubleshoot.

This car is a front wheel drive small car. A 1993 Suzuki Swift 1.6 litre 16 valve. (Yes there is such a thing. :).

Topic

[Jim]

alignment. as long as suspension parts are tight (i.e. tie rods, ball joints) you probably need an alignment. most shops will check it for free. kinda scares me that its a 93 tho. do you live in a part of the world were they use salt on the streets? if so might be that the frame is cracked or bent and an alignment is out because of.

[Carmen]

Tire wear could be for many reasons. Most commonly, as pointd out in the previous post, it is because of an alignment problem.

Alternatively, make sure your tires have the correct amount of cold pressure. Tire pressure gauges are fairly cheap. It is always good to have one in your car.

Under inflated or over inflated tires cause pre-mature tire wear. The correct amount of pressure for your tires should be listed inside of the driver’s door jamb.

[Shane Teague]

Thank you for your replies.

At this point I have checked tire pressure and I know I need to replace at least one bearing. At this point what would be a good check list for things to inspect in addition to ball joints, tie rods etc.. Since it is a front wheel drive I am inquisitive about both ends.

Where I am coming from is I am by no means a mechanic and am learning as I go. I am grateful for all the advice I can get my hands on and will undertake this with caution with a touch of nervousness. Therefore thanks again for feedback.

Mr. Eric The Car Guy if you happen to read this can I make a request for a video on this topic or at least for a referral if there’s already a n existing video?

[Shane Teague]

Would the correct way of phrasing my original question be “How do I perform a mechanical inspection”?

[college man]

As suggested an alignment should be done.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/checking-your-tires-for-wear.html

[EricTheCarGuy]

All great suggestions above. I’d like to add 2 things however. Sometimes it’s the tires themselves. Some tires don’t do so well on some vehicles. Be sure to check the reviews on sites such as TireRack before you purchase a particular brand of tire. The second thing is your driving habits. If you drive in a ‘spirited’ manner, then your tires will wear much faster as a result.

[Shane Teague]

Thank you Eric. I guess spirited driving is burnouts, scratching upon takeoff, and cornering too hard? The point about making sure that the specific tire and car work together well is new to me. That has never occurred to me before. I will use this information soon I hope for hopefully before August we will be getting a new set.

Up to now we have been running an all weather tire tread (as opposed to all season tread) all year. Now we will run all seasons in summer and winter tires in winter. This should ensure we get much more tread wear on each set than just running one set year round.

[Author]

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