Tire Cupping

Regardless, those checked tires need to be replaced pronto in my humble opinion. I wouldn’t take them out of town. You can read the date code on the tires to see how old they are.

Tomatoes and tomahtoes… Where’s the mayo? And after 5:00 we eat supper around here.

But no doubt I would strongly suggest getting the car checked out and replacing those tires before getting on an expressway.

I too agree with Capri, it’s just semantics. The important thing is to recognize it as a wear pattern created by a toe-in condition and address it (or accept it) accordingly.

I’ll bet these tires were never rotated.
I’ve seen weird tread wear (whatever you want to call it) on the rear tires of a FWD car when they never get rotated even when the alignment is OK.
Then if they are finally rotated after, say, 30k miles they’re obnoxiously noisy on front.

Looks like feathering to me and even if no feathering existed the dry rot alone is enough of a reason to replace them.

There is one caveat seeing as how you mention only keeping the car for another year, etc.
That would be the type of driving you do.
If it’s slow speed, short hop in the city you might consider leaving everything as is.

If you spend any time on the expressway at higher speeds then the tires should be replaced as soon as possible due to the blowout risk of an aged tire giving up suddenly.

According to Capriracer’s very good assemblage of tire information, several factors can contribute to rear tire cupping. My wife and I have bought at least a dozen brand new cars since 1970 with most being front drivers, many of which developed rear tire cupping when tire rotation was delayed beyond the owner’s manual recommendation. I don’t believe that strut wear/loose suspension parts was the cause for our cars.

I recently bought new tires for our 2009 Chev Cobalt. I delayed the rotation of the new tires to about 10,400 miles and there was no cupping and no undue noise before or after rotation. The tires were Douglas Xtra-Trac from WM.

I suspect that tire designers may have finally learned how to control radial tire cupping but that is only a guess at this time. I have not seen tire cupping with a rear drive car.

Wha Who said: “…I suspect that tire designers may have finally learned how to control radial tire cupping but that is only a guess at this time. I have not seen tire cupping with a rear drive car. …”

To a great extent 2 things have happened. Tire designers have learned how to make tires less sensitive to misalignment - and vehicle manufacturers have done a better job of alignment. Combined, those 2 things have greatly improved the situation.