'97 Taurus GL 3.0L 164K: Tires Separating

I bought a set of 4 Goodyear Viva II's from Walmart a little over 4 years and 53k miles ago. I paid under $300 installed. Last May (or 3.5 years and 45k miles after purchase), the front two tires wore down on the inside edges until they tore open around the circumference of the tire! One tire failed completely and then while installing the donut spare I noticed the other one was about to fail. I replaced both tires and immediately got a front-end alignment. Tonight I discovered that the rear passenger wheel had suffered the same fate - with the strands/threads poking out halfway around the circumference of the tire!! I'm guessing the last remaining Viva II is probably going to fail the same way soon.

Is this symptom typically caused by front-end mis-alignment or is it something else? Do I need to start looking at struts/shocks or other front-end hardware? From the time of initial purchase to the failure of the first tire, I rotated the wheels 5 times, so all tires had been on the front of the car at one time or another.

I've never had this happen to me with any cars I've ever owned.

What is the tread life rating of the Viva IIs? Were they a 40k mile tire?

Wear like that would often indicate an alignment issue, but it could also be tire-related. I've seen a fair number of Goodyear tire models that just didn't wear well (Tiempos, Eagles, and a couple others that I can't think of now). When the alignment was performed, did you by chance ask if the car was out of specifications by much? A competent alignment technician would inform you if any of the suspension parts were loose and/or if there were signs of leaking oil from the struts. The leaking oil would be more difficult to spot however if the car was wet at the time (from driving through rain or snow/slush on the way to the shop).

Usually bad shocks/struts will cause more of a cupping effect and eventually lead to a vibration at highway speeds. I suppose if the cupping occurred long enough, it could cause the extreme wear you describe. However, I would have expected the cupping to get noticed during the tire rotations before it got to the point of causing the cords to show.

-Rod

I'll have to find out about the tread rating. Now that you mention it, I seem to remember thinking at the time that the rating was lower than what I normally purchase for tires. I usually buy in the 55k-60k range for tread life. These tires may very well have been rated in the 40's. Still, the separation that occurred had more to do with the car's suspension system than being past the 45k (?) tread life rating (I believe).

Regarding the alignment, all the tech said was, "it was way off" (contradicting the owner who had said "it wasn't bad"). No mention of any leaks, loose, or worn parts. Toward the end of the alignment, after all the electronics had been hooked up at each wheel and parameters had been entered and minor adjustments made, the tech made me cringe when he whipped out a large pry bar and enlisted the help of another tech to (presumably) move something one way or the other. I'd never seen anyone do something like that during an alignment. I guess it was necessary because after the alignment, the left pull problem was gone.

This car is definitely not as smooth up front as it used to be. It should be A LOT smoother than it is. There is a definite and noticeable rumble up front. I wish I could pinpoint which components are causing the rumble, but I don't think it's possible without special equipment. I need some way of proving that the tires and rims are round, that the half-axles are turning circularly and not elliptically, etc. A backyard mechanic has no way to prove these things, does he?

Maybe the pair with the large pry bar was checking for play in the ball joints. Did they position the pry bar underneath the tires?

Since your alignment was said to be way off, that probably is the real cause for the tire wear.

Your rumble may be a bad wheel bearing, but it's hard to say without experiencing it in person. Even then it may be difficult to say. In the early stages, a bad wheel bearing would not necessarily result in play in the front end significant enough to be noticed during an alignment.

You're correct, there's not really a safe way for a backyard mechanic to check the runout of the tires, wheels, and halfshafts. I suppose one thing you could do is visit your local Harbor Freight tools store, pick up a dial indicator and mount set (they have one with a locking pliers that would probably work well, and use it to check the runout. You could safely support the car on jackstands, put the tranny in neutral, then rotate the wheels by hand and use the dial indicator to see how uniform everything is rotating. For checking the tires, you'd probably need to run a layer of 2 inch wide tape around them so the tread doesn't catch the indicator's tip. Unfortunately I'm not sure what a "bad" amount of runout would be.

Do you happen to have a pulsating brake pedal under even light braking? I suppose if you have a very warped rotor it could be causing the sensation of a rumble in the front since the pads would possibly make contact with the rotor surface even when the brakes are not applied in that scenario.

-Rod

I didn't notice exactly where the pry bar was going - I was standing outside the garage bay looking in off and on - but the burly guy was standing directly underneath the engine and was turned diagonally toward the passenger wheel, so maybe it was some kind of ball joint check. He would need a helper to do this?

I agree that the alignment had something to do with the tire wear. We'll see how much with the new tires that are on there now.

One other thing about the alignment: the shop never road tested the car. They claimed they didn't need to. I guess this is standard procedure now with electronics involved in these alignments?

Your dial indicator/runout check sounds interesting, but I wonder how accurate it would be. I rotate my tires myself and every time I do it I spin the wheels looking for irregularities, but I can never see any. Also, regarding rotation, I've always used the method shown in the Shop Manuals:

1.) front to back
2.) back to front (criss-crossed)
3.) front to back
4.) back to front (criss-crossed)

This makes each tire rotate through each wheel position. But I've never questioned whether the tires I've purchased do not recommend this approach. Should I be paying attention to that? I've always thought that all radials sold today were cross-rotatable.

Lastly, yes I DO have a pulsating brake pedal every time I come to a stop - and it's very noticeable. I should've changed the rotors a long time ago because I'm pretty sure this problem has existed from when I bought the car brand new! I guess I should finally swap them out to see if that helps any with the front-end rumble. Just hate to go in there for that and then have to go back in again for another reason after the rumble is still there. The other thing I've considered doing is just replacing everything on the passenger front wheel. I hit a high curb (at about 5 mph) in the dead of winter while going through Maryland in 2000 that blew out the front tire and bent the lip of the rim. I replaced the rim (and tire, of course), but maybe the knuckle or axle should've also been replaced. The ball joint on that side finally fell apart a year ago and I pressed a new one into the original knuckle. I considered buying a whole new knuckle (with pre-installed joint) from Ford at that time, but it was a $400+ vs. $40 proposition and I just wasn't convinced that the original knuckle was bad. Also, the half-shaft on that side has never had any visible problems - no apparent leaks, clicks, or boot damage...