Factory tire wear marks

[Acejam]

Hey all,

I swapped over to my winter setup today, as it appears we finally might get some snow later on this week. When I had my summer tires/wheels off, I noticed some odd wear marks/bars on my tires within the middle of the tread. The tires in question are the factory 255/35/19 Continental ContiSportContact 3's.

I always run proper tire pressures (39/33) and as best I know, the factory alignment on my 2014 should be OK.

Has anyone ever seen lines like these before? These tires do have the typical tire wear bars as well, but these seem different. In addition, more than one tire has these lines.




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[S4NJ]

How many miles you got on them? They look pretty worn.


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[Acejam]

How many miles you got on them? They look pretty worn.


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The car has just under 23k miles, bought brand new in October of 2013. However I also run dedicated winter tires/wheels for a few months of each year. I'd say the Conti's have about ~12-15k on them.

[S4NJ]

Yea, they're done bro. The stock ****is are garbage.


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[homelessNY_LI]

Yea, they're done bro. The stock ****is are garbage.


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Def agree those are at the end of their life

[Acejam]

Yea, they're done bro. The stock ****is are garbage.

Def agree those are at the end of their life

I agree. However, I'm more curious about what these odd lines are.

[r32breeze]

Those marks are the wear marks. If threads reach there it means they are done. My stock pirellis are done around 20K miles with couple track use..

[Acejam]

Those marks are the wear marks. If threads reach there it means they are done. My stock pirellis are done around 20K miles with couple track use..

I see wear bars - those are obvious. I'm talking about the small lines which are not perfectly straight that run parallel with the tire tread.

[blackfunk]

Looks like your tires were over inflated, not saying they were but it looks that way. I say that because there still appears to be some meat left on the outsides of the tires.

[Sudz]

Those center tire marks are different then I have seen. Soft areas wear away and leave the strong areas, but this is new to me.

It's more like the tire is rubbing on something all the time, or Continental is doing some weird shit / innovative stuff with their tire tread.

[Dr GP]

They are sipes. They are built into the construction of the tire, Most tires will not have them visible with that little tread left. In fact , most tires wont have them at all.

[Brother Owl]

Looks like your tires were over inflated, not saying they were but it looks that way. I say that because there still appears to be some meat left on the outsides of the tires.

+1. Those lines are weird but this is far more important

[simulacrum]

Yea, they're done bro. The stock ****is are garbage.


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same here...failed PA state inspection to my surprise, with 16k on the car, including about 5k of times on Blizzaks. And I haven't even been driving very aggressively, not track days, kids in the back seat kind of driving. Conti's or alignment (which doesn't make sense as i had even wear) or something else is seriously amiss.

[S4NJ]

I have no idea how Audi gets away with putting Cüntis on these cars. I wonder what the 335's get...


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[paulo6]

I have no idea how Audi gets away with putting Cüntis on these cars. I wonder what the 335's get...


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Horrendous ! Mine lasted 14k and should have been replaced 2k earlier!! Audi should have never sourced them as OEM for this car


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[Reckon]

Those are weird lines...I don't recall seeing that on my stock conti's before they were trashed. Could be something to do with the sipe lines but who knows.

[damnbiker]

I have a 2014 S4 and the OEM conti's looked just like that at 11k miles of spirited commuting. I always wondered what those lines were. My tires had over inflation wear running 36/33psi front/rear, driving 95% alone, empty trunk.

[Ruprecht]

I had something very similar on a set of Pirelli P Zeros on my R32 several years ago. I was completely baffled by it so posted a thread on VWVortex and got an explanation from someone in the tire industry. Can't remember exactly what it was but I'll see if I can find it. This was after only about 5k miles. Loved the tires up to that point but when I remounted them the next spring they needed to be rebalanced every few hundred miles which was getting annoying and expensive. Threw them in the trash at 7k.

[IMG][/IMG]

[Ruprecht]

Found the post after a bit of searching. This was well over 5 years ago. Here's the explanation I got which I found believable. I have no idea if the pattern had any relation to the balancing issues or not. May have just been a crap set of tires. I was surprised after that to see the same tires become OE on so many new cars.

OK......I will start by admitting I design tires for a living for Goodyear. The blistering is not blistering. It is a different rubber compound that has carbon black in it to conduct electricity to ground the car and keep you from getting shocked from static electricity build up when you get out of your car. The main tread compound likely uses silica for the filler / reinforcement. Silica = Great wet traction....usually faster wear. You can see something similar on many tires, but this is the most noticeable I have ever seen. The wear on the outer edge looks to be more of a fast center line wear issue. The groove you are measuring in for the outer shoulder is actually close to the center of the tire. Very round footprints could do this. Could be high inflation pressures, or just the design of the tire and the footprint that is has.

[Acejam]

Found the post after a bit of searching. This was well over 5 years ago. Here's the explanation I got which I found believable. I have no idea if the pattern had any relation to the balancing issues or not. May have just been a crap set of tires. I was surprised after that to see the same tires become OE on so many new cars.

Wow, great information!