Tires "cupping"

shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
Ford SportTrac Forum

Help Support Ford SportTrac Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
B

Bill Robbins

Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2008
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Location
pensacola, FL
Had an oil change and tires rotated as i do every 5,000 miles on my 2003 Sport Trac, the shop said my tires were "cupped", said he had seen that a lot with Sport Tracs and i should contact the dealer, has anyone else had this problem, the internet seems to think its common, before i call the dealer i wanted to get an opinion form this site which has been so helpfull for me in the past. Is there a recommended fix? I read several reasons why it could be happening including the wrangler tires, shocks, etc etc etc.



I bought the Sporty used and have only had it for 20,000 miles, so i cant say that it was a problem before



Thanks
 
The factory wrangler tires are the worst for cupping on the inside. Also the factory shocks allow to much spring osolation. Some tracs need the camber adjusted to prefered specs, not in tolerence specs.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Tires is the major thing! They are junk. Shocks will help and getting camber bolts where alignment can be better aligned!!
 
Alignment DOES NOT CAUSE CUPPING. Cupping is cause by the suspensions inability to keep the tire firmly planted on the ground. The usual cause is weak shocks or struts followed by tire inbalance. An alignment issue will not cause th etire to not be planted on the ground unless it is so drastically off that the vehicle is literally not driveable.



I hope that everybody understands that tire cupping is when you can run your hand in the direction of tire tread and feel high and low spots, also refered to as chopping.
 
Has the same with my 01, Tires are crap. I bought four rancho shocks before installing the new BF all-terrians and never had a problem agian. Good luck with the dealer they told my I didnt rotate the tires often enough, I laughed since it only had around 5000 miles on it.
 
My experience - When I had my '03 I experience the beginnings of tire cupping at 4500 mi. I took it to the dealership, without prior knowledge of what cupping was all about, and they did tell me that it was cupping and that to "fix it" they would do a rotation (I figured out later that it was just to "mask" the sound of the cupped tire) as well as an alignment, and they sent me on my way. After 12,000 mi. I had several cupped tires, and again, took it into the dealer, who informed me that yes, it was cupping and that my tires were now out of warranty and they would do nothing for them unless I paid. That was the last time I ever went to the dealer for work on my ST, btw.



I then took my ST to a certified GoodYear dealer who agreed that my tires at 14K mi. were finished and he suggested I go back to Ford. Tired of the games, I purchased used Michelins, got an alignment and new shocks. No cupping for about 30K miles on that set of tires. Finally, I got another alignment and bought new BFG's, which lasted me until I traded my ST with 97K miles on it. The BFG's didn't start to cup until about 45K mi. into the tread-life.



The point of my story is that I never escaped tire cupping with my '03 ST, I was however able to comfortably prolong the frustrations with new tires, shocks, sway bar, and frequent alignments. Best of luck!
 
Tires have a lot to do with it. I had a set of Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo's that ended up cupping after 20k or so. I'm currently running Michelin LTX M/S tires, and there's no cupping at all, even though the tires are nearly worn out.
 
Stock shocks were junk from the factory. Replace them ASAP and feel the difference. I was a skeptic too, until I put new shocks on my '03 Adrenalin and could not believe the improvement!



GoodCrap Wranglers are JUNK. Put some better tires on your trac and get rid of the noise, the hydroplaning, and poor traction in snow. The bad thing is that the GoodCrap tires wear slowly and last forever, so you can put up with their horrible performance and noise for a long long time.



Ford screwed the pooch on the shocks and tires for the Gen 1 tracs. Hopefully some engineers got transfered to the Focus for those gaffes. However, judging from the mess with horrible OEM Michelin CrossTerrains on the Gen 2, it appears the tire guy didn't get properly diciplined, or else maybe he was transferred to Accounting where he struck a deal with Michelin to provide sub-standard CrossTerrains as OEM tires.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Kcsporttrac04,5/10/2010 07:14 MT



L1tech....what about swipping? which is caused by alignment but mistaken as "cupping" alot??
Click to expand...



I have worked at 1 Firestone and 1 Goodyear earlier on in my career and in 22+ years have never heard of this term. Do you have link or can you describe it??
 
Well I work at Firestone Complete auto care. Im Mgr of Tire sales. If toe is out the tire is trying push down the road, something like this / , so it swipes across the tire. so if the tire is toed in it swipes from outside/inside..
 
by Kcsporttrac04,5/11/2010 06:51 MT



Well I work at Firestone Complete auto care. Im Mgr of Tire sales. If toe is out the tire is trying push down the road, something like this / , so it swipes across the tire. so if the tire is toed in it swipes from outside/inside..
Click to expand...



I've never heard someone describe it that way and essentially you are correct but that is just wear casued by incorrect toe. Tire cupping, or chopping, as it is also refered to, is the tread of a tire that has developed high and low spots. If you were to run you hand along the tire in the diretion of travel you would feel the tread is high and low,(almost like looking down the edge of a serrated knife) usually the front of each tread block will be lower than the rear of the same tread block, this is caused by the tire hopping up and down on the road due to what is usually worn out shocks/struts but can in some cases be caused by tire balance and lack of rotation.
 

Latest posts

Top