All 4 Tires Cupped on Inside -- How Can I Prevent This in Future?

Question

I just had to replace 4 tires with plenty of tread life left after I had them for only ONE year because all 4 were cupping on the inside edges, creating very loud road noise that was getting worse as each week went by. I drive a 05 Honda Odyssey minivan and have had tires rotated faithfully, plus made sure they were properly inflated. Honda looked at my van and said, nothing is wrong mechanically, it is the tires. Went back to the tire place where I got the tires, and they said nothing is wrong with the tires, it has to be something wrong with your vehicle.

Honda says they checked steering, suspension, and wheel bearings and all are fine. They want $80 to do an alignment. Tire place says this won't help anything because if alignment was issue, only 2 tires would be showing the cupping, not all 4 exactly the same.

I just want to avoid having this happen to the NEW tires I just had to buy to get the road noise to go away.

What should I be pushing Honda to do/look for on my van?

Answer 1

IIRC the van in question is front wheel drive. It is possible to have the back axle a little out of spec at the same time. This would cause all tires to cup at the same time. I would pay to have an 4 wheel alignment done just to be sure.

Answer 2

I have seen this alot on Odyssey vans and you need to first look at the tires that you had and check the size and load rating because this is a common problem that tire shops have been doing, putting the wrong load rated tires on these vans.

If they are okay and meet the recommended size and load ratings then have them check everything and tell them that you want a 4-wheel alignment......

We have had 7 Honda Odyssey vans this year with the wrong tires on them........

Answer 3

as you have the tyres rotated, any that have been on the front will show wear.

i would get the alignment done.

it will improve the handling, steering and tyres

Answer 4

Cupped tires are most often caused by bad shocks and more so by bad struts.

The purpose of the struts is to keep the tires from bouncing off the ground when you go over bumps. If the struts are really bad, the tires can literally bounce up and down like a basketball, and each time the tires hit the ground, a little bit of the rubber gets scraped off. Eventually, you get a lot these little scuffed spots, and that's called "cupping."

Cheap tires cup more easily than good tires. Make sure you replace them with good, name brand tires.

Answer 5

One important factor you left out is how many miles you got from these tyres.

It wouldn't do any harm getting wheel alignment checked though