Belts have shifted in the tires on my Camry. Struts are bad too, but are costly to replace. Is it necessary to replace struts before getting new tires? (ie: are strut problems ruining the tires?)
If your struts are shot they’re ruining your tires. But they cannot shift the belts inside the tires. Once the tire is molded, the belts are wherever they are, they can only fail by seperating.
What’s the wear pattern look like? You can use www.carbibles.com as a reference.
The wear pattern looks fine. The tires look good (23000 miles on them), but I get a whole lot of vibration out of them. Took the car for service two months back and was told the belts were shifted, they show a lot of wobble on the balancer.
Don’t think I can swing $500+ for struts and mounts right now, but might have to if tires are being killed by the struts.
Bad struts can cause the tires to cup. If struts are real bad and you replace the tires without replacing the struts…expect to decrease the tire life by at least half.
How old is the car and how many miles does it have?
97 Camry. Don’t notice any cupping…
97 Camry with 160K.
If this is true, go back to your tire dealer. This kind of issue should be covered under the tire manufacturer’s workmanship warranty. Have the tire dealer inspect the tires in question.
The best way I’ve found to determine cupping or any other abnormal wear is to run your open hand lightly over the tread surface. Irregular wear will be easily felt.
97 Camry. Don’t notice any cupping…
The operative word there is YET.
I’m going to submit that if you are feeling a vibration that wasn’t there before, then the problem is related to the wear pattern, which is far enough along to feel the vibration but not far enough along to see - and the bad shocks are the source.
And, no, this is NOT covered by the warranty, since it has an external cause!