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Weird Tire Gouge

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Doug_G

Lead Moderator
Global Moderator
Apr 2, 2010
17,888
3,421
Ottawa, Canada
My Pirelli snow tires had worn enough that I recently decided to replace them with Xice3. They had about 6/10ths left, which is of course still street legal but not very good for snowy conditions. (Comparison against Pirelli: they don't grip as well under acceleration, but they work a lot better on snow and ice!)

When we removed the wheels I noticed something weird about two of the tires - they had a strange gouge in the tread. It was very obvious because of the trace of dust that was picked up from the shop floor before they were unmounted. You could feel a slight depression when running your finger across it.

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This does not line up with the upper control arm; besides I can't see how they would contact. There's also no sign of contact anywhere else.

Any thoughts about where this might have come from?
 
No idea what that came from but because the XIce will have deeper tread, you should be able to see it right away. One way to check would be to coat a wheel well and suspension parts with talcum power, drive a bit on a dry day, and see if the powder has rubbed off anywhere.
 
Could you have had something (bolt, rock, etc...) stuck in some bodywork somewhere inside the wheel well for a while, that has since fallen off?

Also, have you ever rotated this set of tires?
 
The groove was in two of the tires - one on each side. I might not have noticed this except the tires were coated with a thin layer of dust from the shop floor when they were taken off. So I'm assuming the grooves were there when I took the wheels off in the fall. (I decided after putting the winter wheels on to get new tires; they were a bit too thin for snow conditions.)

Oddly one grooved tire was front and the other rear, but I'm guessing they were both on the same end last year. When I swap tires I keep them on the side they came off of, but I put the deeper tread on the back since that wears faster on the Model S.

I can see absolutely nothing on the car that would do this. Really odd.
 
So I have an explanation from Tesla. Apparently tire manufacturers usually put a strip of carbon black in the tire to ensure grounding of the vehicle. It prevents static buildup. In some cases it may wear differently from the rest of the tire, making the strip more visible. Also the line tends to be more obvious on Pirelli Sotozeros than other tires.
 
I wonder if a manufacturing defect could cause that. I'd send those pictures to your manufacturer - they should be interested, and also have an answer. Or, a tire shop that's seen everything should know.