My 2011 Subaru has bald front tires - why?

Depending upon the wear pattern this could be an alignment issue and any warranty on tires is provided by the people who manufacture the tires; not Subaru.
Worn tires due to an alignment issue then gets into the murky area of whether Subaru would step in and cover any alignment fault or tire issue due to that fault.

You state the tires were rotated on schedule and this means the bulk of the wear could have been while they were on the rear of the car. This will then get into the area of why someone would rotate worn tires and not notify the car owner.
You make several references to high speed driving so there could be an assumption, right or wrong, that the worn tires that came from the rear were worn due to aggressive driving habits.

In regards to the jiggling steering wheel, that could very well be caused by the worn tires and not the brakes even though the brakes are in use when this occurs.

If you were rotating your tires as stated, it’s hard to see how this could happen without being noticed…

It will be interesting to see what kind of shape your front brakes are in…If the pads are worn out at 14,000 miles then your driving habits becomes the prime suspect for these problems and you will get no help from Subaru…

Unless you really abuse your car something has to be radically wrong with it for that much wear to occur on the tires in only 14k miles. You are going to have to replace all of the tires with new ones after the problem with the drive system is found and fixed. You should normally be able to get more than double the amount of life on the tires you got on this set.

Do you go fast around corners? I know for a fact its not hard to wear tires quickly with aggressive driving. If its a bad alignment it ought to be easy to find.

Another version of theft? Is it possible that someone traded tires with you?

While I’m sure the rear tires look a lot better than the bald front ones, please check and tell us how much tread they have. Try the ‘quarter test’, insert a quarter in the tread, with the top of Washington’s head towards the tire. Does the tread obscure the top of his head? If not, they’re all pretty worn out.

Good thing you’re bringing the car in. You may have a serious problem that can be easily fixed.

If you have two bald tires and two tires that are fine, then you’ve probably been damaging your AWD system by driving this way, as your tire circumferences probably differ by more than the amount allowed in your owner’s manual. That could be an expensive problem, so let’s hope you lucked out here.

In the future, I’d suggest checking your tire tread quickly each time you check your tire pressure. It doesn’t take more than a second to feel for the wear bars while you’re doing that.

You’re correct that it’s a bad idea to drive on bald tires. You can hydroplane on the smallest amount of water and crash, not to mention that it’s illegal.

“you don’t have to replace all 4 tires in a Subaru, but you do have to replace them all if it’s AWD”

Well since all Subarus sold in the US for the past 2 decades have been equipped with AWD, then–yes–it is necessary to replace all 4 tires at the same time on a Subaru, unless it is a very old model.

As to the OP’s problem, it is likely to be a combination of several factors from this list:

Failure to maintain correct air pressure (How often do you check it, and correct, as necessary?)
Failure to rotate tires every 7,500 miles (You may have been charged for tire rotation, but perhaps it was not done.)
Bad alignment (When, if ever, was the alignment checked?)
Local driving, with lots of turns (This is much harder on tires than highway driving.)

However, no tire goes from having a decent amount of tread to being bald in a short period of time, so the drastic difference in tread depth between the front & the rear tires makes it obvious that nobody (both the OP and the folks at the service facility) has looked at these tires (and their pressure, and their alignment) for quite a while.

Unfortunately, I don’t see any solution other than the OP buying a set of 4 new tires.
Hopefully there will be frequent pressure checks and visual inspections of those new tires, lest history repeat itself.

I hate to say this but did you possibly buy a bit to much car? If you cant afford tires for it maybe you should look at a cheaper car. I know its not common to need tires at 14k miles, but I have seen oem tires needing replacement at 20k miles.

WheresRick wrote:
I hate to say this but did you possibly buy a bit to much car? If you cant afford tires for it maybe you should look at a cheaper car.

Don’t feel bad about saying this. It’s true that the OP should have bought an older car, although switching at this point is perhaps a different argument because of the money lost on depreciation.

Note if your brakes are worn or worn out Subaru covers them for 3yrs/36k miles if warranty is same as our 2005 Legacy GT was. Wife wore her first set out in 35k :slight_smile: and Subaru footed the bill including new rotors!

First, short trips are tough on tires. Freeway miles are practically free. That’s because in order to turn a vehicle, the tire has to develop a slip angle - and that slip angle causes wear.

So if you spend most of your drive doing short hops, your tires are going to wear quickly no matter what you do.

Your Subie is basically a front wheel drive car that makes the front wheels drive, steer and carry the most weight. If you don’t rotate the tires, the fronts will wear out much faster than the rears. That said, 14k is pretty fast. If you buy the same tire size, and better still - brand and tire model, as the rear, you should be OK to buy only 2 tires.

I agree with several posters here, check the alignment, if it is off, that could explain the tire wear. Is the steering wheel pointed straight ahead when you are in the middle lane of 3 lanes of traffic (flattest part of the road)? If not, you’ve likely bent something and thrown off the alignment.

Another thought, since you have a shimmy AND the passenger front is worn more than the drivers side, check for a bent wheel. The bent wheel will cause a shimmy and it will also wear the tire faster since it “wiggles” back and forth. I had this problem on my wife’s car and whatever she hit, it didn’t affect the alignment but it bent the wheel.

Bald tires don’t grip in the rain, if it rains when you take your trip, you could hydroplane off the road…not good.

“Well since all Subarus sold in the US for the past 2 decades have been equipped with AWD, then–yes–it is necessary to replace all 4 tires at the same time on a Subaru, unless it is a very old model.” — Because it’s AWD, not because it’s a Subaru.

“Your Subie is basically a front wheel drive car that makes the front wheels drive, steer and carry the most weight.”

That is true for many of the Honda & Toyota AWD systems, but it is not true for the full-time AWD systems on Subarus.

The AWD system on this car normally has a 50/50 torque split, and when wheel-slip is detected, the torque split can change to 60/40 or 40/60.

There just about has to be some story missing in regards to this problem. It’s stated that the tires were rotated on schedule and that likely means one rotation; which means the current bald front tires are from the rear.
The rear tires which are from the front are described as fine.

This can only mean that if there is an alignment issue which chewed up 2 tires very quickly there would have to be a sudden reason for it and which happened after the tire rotation; curb strike, large pothole, etc. That should show up in the wear pattern.

If both fronts are uniformly bald then the issue of driving habits arise…

@fattrap Subaru actually makes a car that is an absolute hoot called the Subaru BRZ since last year maybe. It is RWD and 2700 lbs which is a rare combination these days. Incredible handler and blast to drift, I was so lucky to borrow friends and use a closed ski area parking lot to try it out where he works.

The BRZ isn’t a true Subaru. They provide the engine for it but the rest of the car I believe is made by Toyota. Scion has their FR-S version of it also.

@VDCdriver A Subie may be AWD with a 50/50 torque split but it still carries more weight on the front axle than the rear (split is about 56/44 front/rear) and as such the front tires still do more work than the rears and will wear faster.