I had noticed my drivers front was whining a bit more than it used to so I took a look when I got home. I'm at a loss to find out why my stock BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A's would wear differently across the tire on each piece of thread.

Any idea's or recommendations on how to fix/avoid/maintain this tire? Or should I get off of it entirely?

My front left, and two back tires have a little over 21k on them (others are wearing normally). My front right is the factory spare when at ~4k miles I noticed a crack in the sidewall. I'm about to install a 4" lift and will most likely be putting 37's on my factory wheels... now I think I may avoid these tires all together.

Weird Thread Wear




Sidewall Crack at around 4k miles

 

That's called tread scallop and the cause is incorrect toe setting. That crack almost looks like a cut.

 

Hmm guess I should have the front end realigned. Do you think I should replace the tire or is it still drivable as is?

 

x2. Your toe-in needs to be adjusted. I would hurry up and get your front end aligned, then rotate your tires. You don't need to purchase a new tire. it will be fine. Just get the problem fixed and put your front tires in the back so you can even out the tread once you get this problem aligned.

 

Depends on how deep that crack or cut is. If you can find someone that still trues tires, you can have that done and it will fix that wear pattern. You can try to run it on the rear, but that looks pretty bad. Once they go a certain amount, there's no turning back unless you have it trued......and finding someone to true tires nowadays is kinda tough.

 

I have the exact same thing going on to my front tires. I took it to a tire shop and they said it was cupping and probably caused by the tires not being rotated... at all from the front. I bought it at 18k miles and now at 23k I just rotated them to the back and they seem to be slowly getting better. Let me know if you find out if it's definitely an alignment issue because I wasn't quite buying lack of rotation as the cause of this.

 

You might wanna rotate your tires more. Mine started cupping abit from not rotating every 3000 - 4000 miles. They're back even now.

 

X3, rotating them more often should be the cure (or at least the prevention). Several have had similar issues from not rotating frequently, about every 3K miles seems to be the best remedy.

 

You have to rotate mud tires every 3k or that will happen. Your mud tires will last way longer too.

 

It is odd that it is only the one tire cupping like that. If/when you do rotate the tires, check you other front end components to make sure there isn't something starting to wear out, such as shock, bearing, or tie rod end. It kind of hard to tell fromt he picture, but that tire might be too far cupped to straighten out with a simple rotation.

As others have said, it is good practice to rotate mud terrains every 3000 miles.