Cupping 35's

[Deadman 94 xj]

Cupping is alternating high/low/high/low tread blocks....uneven wear amongst the tread blocks. It's fairly patternistic. Normal tread wear, all the tread blocks are the same height. With this, there is obvious differences in height, even on the same tread block.

Thanks, good luck.

 

[XJfire75]

Do you mean prior to Jeremy? or Jeremy?

Jeremy and I know of the other PO.

 

[Deadman 94 xj]

Jeremy and I know of the other PO.

What's your point? There's obviously an issue...

 

[the_weirdo]

I had severe cupping towards the last half of the life on my 31" Baja Claws. Rotating them is the key to preventing it. Once it starts it will only get worse and you cannot stop it no matter what you do.

 

[ChuckstrPT]

I had severe cupping towards the last half of the life on my 31" Baja Claws. Rotating them is the key to preventing it. Once it starts it will only get worse and you cannot stop it no matter what you do.

OFF TOPIC....how many miles did you get out of them? and what were your impressions wheeling them?
Thanks:sunshine:

 

[mizedog]

Deadman, here's a far away pic of my cupped tires. I HATE them. They ATs but as loud as the Swampers on my old CJ were!!! I moved the cupped front to the back after balancing, and alignment. Now the fronts are cupped. The tires have less than a year on them but will probably be replaced in the next six months if this gets worse.

Usually, the leading edge of a tread block stays high but the trailing edge wears down. This means that after severe cupping, you're really riding on the points of the block. That's why mine are so loud and rough.

 

[Goatman]

While it has been mentioned that there is not a lot you can do about cupping once it has started and with the claws being a directional tire and not able to move to the other side of the car (unless un-mounting and remounting to the rim). A large cause is from alignment and balance right? While it is hard to 100% balance a cupped tire because of the various points and a standard balancer will only put weights in a few locations.

Would the use of Air soft beads or the special designed pellets for balancing tires work extra well in this application to prevent it from cupping any further (assuming every thing else is in order)? This would insure a 100% balance all the time causing the tire to wear down at the same rate correct? or due to the deformation with there always be more wear in the cupped sections causing the vicious cycles that were discussed above?

I never used them, but they are supposed to work. If so, it would be the perfect solution to balancing big tires and avoiding uneven tire wear. Uneven tire wear (cupping) is always a greater risk on bigger tires, so making sure the alignment is good and the tires are rotated regularly is the biggest help to minimizing cupping. Lot's of potential causes have been thrown out there for uneven tire wear, and any of them could be correct, but the most common are tire balance, alignment, and lack of tire rotation.

 

[the_weirdo]

OFF TOPIC....how many miles did you get out of them? and what were your impressions wheeling them?
Thanks:sunshine:

I loved them. Excellent in mud, very good to great in rocks. Downside is that they are loud on the street, very rumbly at any speed under 10 MPH (youo can feel the tread blocks hit the street) but smooth out above 15MPH. Even though I daily drive my XJ, I really thought about getting a set of 33's or 35's when I wore the 31's out. IMO they are a great tire. If I didn't get my current 33" BFG ATs for almost free with aluminum rims, I absolutely would have gotten the Baja Claws again. Highly recommended.

Edit: I got 25k miles out of them. They probably had another 5-7k in them when I sold them. If I had rotated them better, I could have probably gotten more mileage from them - too bad I am lazy.

 

[SleeperXJ]

I had the same problem couple of years ago. I took the tires to a shop that could "true" them. The put the tire on something that looks like a tire balancing machine and turn a portion of the tread off, maybe up to 0.125". This gets the tire smooth again. Not many shops do this anymore, like 2 in the Los Angeles area. A shop that services truck tires can usualy true tires. Anyway, end result was nice quiet smooth running tires. After that I rotate my tires every 3K miles.

 

[ChuckstrPT]

Ok, update time. Well, I had atleast 3 shops look at the front end, including the Dealership, Firestone, and Bluetorch. Everyone said the front end is good. No one would venture a guess as to cause. I got the usual "well, ya know they are mud tires blah blah blah....you can't balance blah blah blah...They are pretty big too," crap, as well as "well when it's modified like that it could be anything," crap. So, I bought a rim, and mounted the ugly one as the spare...no longer vibrating when I drive...:viking: Also invested in another 35" claw, and pu it up front. Seems to be much better now. It's not a daily driver, so I will try to keep an eye on them, and rotate regularly. :sunshine: