Recently I noticed a vibration at 55 mph to 65 mph. This was a fast vibration that would cause the change in the the bowl in the front of the console to rattle and jingle. It was pretty annoying but it didn't seem to hurt things. This was noticed near the start of a 700 mile round trip. The symptoms did not get any better by the end. The tires are less than 3 years old and have no more than about 5,000 miles on them.

After I got home I had the tires rebalanced. Well it didn't change things.

In the process of trying to figure out what was going on, I learned a few things and was told a few things about which I thought I'd share here and in case anyone had any suggestions as to what they think is the best way to prevent odd wear on tires.

• My tire dealer rotates tires on a diagonal pattern. This I was told is to ensure the tires get moved in such a way that they alternate which direction is forward for them which is supposed to help with tire wear. They recommend rotations ever 3,000 miles.
• According to the owners manual, tires should be rotated by moving the front tires to the opposite rear side and the rear ones moved forward on the same side. The owners manual recommends tire rotation every 6,000 miles.
• The few times I would rotate them I just did front to back.
• I learned that there are two main types of tire balancers; regular dynamic balancers and road-force balancers. My tire shop only has the former. I'm thinking of having my tires rebalanced at another shop that has the road-force balancer, even though it will cost me.
• According to the tire shop guy I have some cupping on the outer tire lugs. I'll upload a picture soon but I could see how they were worn more towards one rotation direction than another. It was explained to me this was because of the tires not being rotated frequently enough. Only the rears had the cupping and these were rotated only a few thousand miles ago.
  And finally...
• I learned that there is a Technical Service Bulletin from Toyo that there have been reports of too much lubricant having been used on the rims of tires when they were mounted allowing them to rotate about the rim, throwing off the balance. I plan to mark the position of the inflation nipple to see if this is happening to me.

 

All good info, Christine! I have found quite a few instances where tire manufacturers will have rotation recommendations that will differ from vehicle manufacturers.

Do not overlook the possibility of weak shocks allowing too much movement at the tire as well. Once a little bit of chop (non-uniform wear) begins, a worn shock can allow it to snowball. The larger the tread blocks on the tire, the more chance of this occurring.

 

Thanks for sharing that Christine. I'm curious to see how you resolve the issue.

Personally I've always followed the tire rotation pattern described in the owners manual: crossed front to back, straight back to front. This way the tires end up running on all 4 corners over time.

Following the manufacturer's recommendations would probably be smart, and honestly I've never even thought to go see if there are tire specific recommendations.

 

Thanks guys.

I now have some new information I'm trying to digest as part of understanding where my tire vibration originated.

First some pictures of the tire wear on the rear tires. There was no odd wear on the front.


This is the right-rear tire. I added the arrow to remind myself of the direction of rotation. This pattern is called heel-toe wear.



This is the left-rear showing the same heel-toe wear as on the left. Neither of the front tires showed this pattern.

This type or wear is called heel-toe wear. It is associated with not rotating ones tires properly or frequently enough.

There are lots of descriptions of this type of wear on tires but few if any include the direction of rotation on the picture so you can be sure of their description. (A picture is worth a thousand words, right?)

This is a picture I found describing heel-toe wear for large trucks.

Heel-toe wear on large truck.

This is the description of this phenomena that accompanied a similar picture above, but without an arrow designating the direction: (https://business.michelinman.com/tip...-tire-wear-101)
"APPEARANCE
Each lug around tire worn high to low from front to back edge.

PROBABLE CAUSE
Mismatched inflation pressure or tire diameters in a dual assembly. High torque conditions, mountainous terrains, and high inflation pressures aggravate this condition.

CORRECTIVE ACTION
Review tire maintenance practices. Consult tire manufacturer when selecting tire for operation.

TIRE DISPOSITION
Continue to run. If severe, change direction of rotation."

(https://business.michelinman.com/tip...-tire-wear-101)

From this website of Continental tires, https://www.continental-tires.com/nl.../tire-damages/, causes for this wear are described which is super helpful with diagnosing the causes. Sadly, their diagram, although it showed the tire rotation, did not show the heel-toe wear.

"While the tire is rolling along the road, the freestanding blocks deform as they approach the contact patch of the tire, and they're compressed as they touch the tarmac. After they lose road contact, however, the blocks will snap back into their original shape, rubbing the surface as they do so. The result is a wear pattern on the block run-out edge, and it's more likely to appear on non-driven wheel positions.

A minor amount of heel and toe pattern wear is reasonable and has no discernible effects on driving comfort. But if the wear is more extensive, more specific issues may be at fault. These can range from improper inflation, excessive toe-in, and low wear applications."


(https://www.continental-tires.com/nl.../tire-damages/)

What confuses me is that according to these pictures, my tire wear is in the wrong direction for tires rotating in the directions they would due to their current location. Further more, looking at my last alignment from December of last year, the total toe-in value was 0.06 degrees which was designated as fine. The Left and Right toe-in values were -0.06 and +0.12 degrees respectively.

A preliminary inspection showed me that this heel-toe wear is only on the outside edge of the tires. However, I want to double check that.

I do have an issue that I think might contribute, but I'm not sure. It is that I have Rough Country upper control arms, that are longer than stock and are intended for Blazers with a small lift. However, my torsion bars and rear springs have sagged so that even with the t-bars cranked and longer shackles in the back, the truck is close to stock height.

I also intend, but forgot to call the tire store and have them confirm when I last had the tires rotated. According to my notes it was about 3,000 miles ago. [EDIT: I was able to confirm that the last time the tires were rotated was about 3,000 miles ago back in November.]

Combining the descriptions above with the pictures, the wear pattern and direction would make sense if they had been rotated recently. If they had been on the opposite front corners, the direction of rotation would have been correct for the direction of the wear pattern, and that if on the front, that would be consistent with the comment above that it is more likely to occur on non-driven wheels. [EDIT: I now suspect that the tires must have had this wear pattern before they were rotated from the opposite front corners. I think I will be having them rotated again very soon, but this time moving the rears directly forward and the fronts to the opposite rear corners which is what GM recommends instead of how the tire shop does it which is only on an X pattern.]

From what the tire store person told me and what I read, the remedy is to run them and let them wear back to have more even wear.

I'll post updates to this thread in case it might be of use to others in the future.

 

Hi all,

I thought I'd give an update on the vibration in my tires.

A bit over a week ago, I took my truck to a second tire shop and paid them $200 to have my tires Road-Force Balanced in hopes that doing it that way instead of the regular dynamic balancing might help with the vibrations. I was told that according the the second place my tires were off by quite a bit. They didn't give me any details from the machine except to say that all were off by 25 lbs and that there was one that they couldn't quite balance as well as they would have liked.

In short, it helped a bit but the vibration is still there this time from about 45 to 55 mph. The images in the side and rear view mirrors still shakes a bit although the amplitude is not quite as bad.

I'm now thinking of adding balancing beads to the tires since I don't think it will hurt things.

Do any of you have experience with these? Can you offer any advice?

 

Quick update. The balance beads I installed only helped a bit. I still have vibrations at hiway speeds.

I'm running out of ideas.

I had the tires rebalanced using a regular dynamic balancer, had them balanced with a road-force balancer, and now have added balance beads.

I'm thinking something has happened to the tires.

I really was hoping to avoid the cost of replacing them for at least a few more years.

 

As you can tell, Im not on here on a regular basis... Anyway, I think you already figured out why they are acting up at highway speed, the heel-toe wear actually bouncing the wheel up due to the backwards ramp effect. Curious if it's still as bad or if you swapped sides just to keep your teeth from rattling loose. Another thing I realized is thst there hasn't really been ANY tire reviews for about 15 years! Its still the same ones I looked at 10 years ago when I put my Hankook H727 on. They still have treadlife somehow but after picking up something 2 days after getting it licensed and back on the road, realized that no shop is going to touch them. New tire plugs are in the mail because I too dont want to put another set on just yet.