One indention on one tire?

[jstutz]

Lately i have noticed some road noise that almost sounds like a bad front wheel bearing. This is on my 01 blazer. After listening closely, i realized it is my tires making the noise. I check my tires regularly for tire pressure and rotate them (semi) regularly. Anyway i noticed that on my front driver side, there is one spot on the out side tread of the tire that there is a divot in the tread. I guess the correct term is cupped out. It is only in one spot and the rest of the tire appears to be wearing normally. There is also a slight forward cupping on the tire tread. These are Uniroyal cross country Laredos. The forward cupping is very slight but the cupping in that spot is pretty severe, maybe a 16th of an inch lower than the rest of the tread and it is in a spot about the size of 2 to 3 inch in length. I dont feel any broken belts or anything and the inside of the tire looks good. Any idea what would cause this? Maybe ill try to get some pics to help out.

 

[The_Jeff]

How are your shocks? 4WD? Pics would be useful. You might even be able to get that tire warrantied from a helpful dealer, but then you'd get another Uniroyal, LOL.

 

[jstutz]

Shocks are fairly new monroe reflex shocks. Tires are most likely out of warranty. I can put the goofy one on the back. I was just curious to what would cause such a localized cupping.

 

[CapriRacer]

This sounds like shocks to me. But it also sounds like you replaced the shocks recently, but the tires are old.

You should be aware that once a wear pattern starts in a tire, it tends to continue even if you fix what is driving the wear pattern. Plus wear patterns gradually get worse - and if you don't fix the driving force, they get worse more quickly.

Case in point: If you have one sided wear, caused by mis-alignment. Fixing the mis-alignment only fixes the cause of the wear. It doesn't fix the wear itself. If the tire continues in operation, the one sided wear will gradually get worse.