Neil said:
I thought I'd start a new thread as this was such a hot topic in the earlier
spark plug thread. I also found a thread on another forum regarding tire
wear.
http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.eea1f49/4629
Still no reference to cupping however, and that thread seems to show the OEM
Michelins wearing out somewhere between 30-50k miles.
Perhaps hyundaitech might like to share his experiences with tire wear on
the Michelins?
I'll add an associated topic regarding my Sonata, but it could be anything.
I received my used Sonata with "new" tires of the OE model with
"Heel-Toe Wear." This is a condition is which the leading edge of the
tread blocks is a different height than the trailing edge. It's rarely
desribed in consumer car books and/or web sites, but you'll find it
commonly on truck tire web sites; that's where I got the info. If you
dig around those sites, you'll find the condition described quite nicely.
The phenomenon comes from neglecting tire rotation. I devised my own
fix, which was to have the tires rotated in a pattern intended to
reverse the wear -- an exact criss-cross. The tires are still in very
good shape, and this maneuver hasn't caused any deterioration in
handling, noise, or other nasties. I also elected to slightly
overinflate the tires vs. spec in order to compensate for uneven wear
caused by either hard cornering, underinflation, or both.
The guy I bought the car from is a vehicular airhead, so it's probable
that if he neglected rotation, he probably neglected his inflation too,
having left this to the tire shop. And since I've never been to a tire
shop in my life that inflated the tires close to correct -- well, you
get the idea. In fact, I've even bought new tires from one or two shops
that didn't even own a pressure gauge. Yeah; it's that bad.
Richard