i took my suv in for tire rotation. the mechanic said my tires had cupped and if he rotated them they would roar. he said i needed struts. He did not rotate the tires. i took the suv to a “real” mechanic who dismantled something and said i did not need struts. He ask if my vehicle was pulling right or left, or if it seemed to “bounce” when going over a bump of any degree. I replied no, the vehicle does not do any of these things. So he rotated the tires and sure enough they roar. I drove a few thousand miles and had them rotated again. Oh boy, the roar is more loud than before. Just looking at the tires they appear fine with plenty of tread.
Should i believe it is the tires or should i look into the roar coming from another problem.
Cupped tires make a lot of noise. Your question really is, will bad struts cause the cupped tires. That answer is yes. Also poor alignment can cause the tires to cup. You don’t seem to really trust the mechanics that can look at the car and tires, so how much can someone who can’t see them help you? Perhaps your best bet at this point is to take the car to a Mazda dealer. You need to figure out why the current tires are cupping. Fix that problem and then replace the tires and the noise will be gone.
You can fix the car and keep the tires and wear them out, but you need ear plugs because the noise will remain. If you don’t fix the underlying problem(s), then getting new tires is risky because they will likely cup too and you’ll be back where you started.
Not that this is your problem, but on Camry the rear tires were cupped. I thought I needed new struts even though it passed the bounce test. I found an honest mechanic and after much tinkering he noticed that even though the 4 tires were same make/model, 2 of them had manufacturing dates that made them 2-3 years older. We decided it was mostly an older tire issue. New tires there and after 15K miles no issues.
Uncle Turbo has said everything I was going to say - EXCEPT:
Escapes and its clones are kind of known for generating irregular wear - what many people call cupping. The source is the camber spec. My experience says that anything over a degree is prone to tire wear problems. So I would advise you to get the alignment guy to take out as much camber as he can.