Noticing that your tyres are wearing faster on the outer edge? This uneven tread can be a warning sign of poor alignment, underinflation, or aggressive cornering. In this guide, we explain what causes outside-edge tyre wear, how to identify it early, and the best steps to fix or prevent it.
Tyre tread is an important part of vehicle maintenance, ensuring that the tread is not only within the legal limit but is also evenly spread and therefore keeps your car safe and stable on the road.
Without sufficient tyre tread, drivers have less control over their vehicle when steering and will find that their braking distances increase. What’s more, tyres without sufficient tread depth are more likely to suffer punctures or blowouts, which can be both frustrating to deal with and dangerous when driving.
Suffice to say, keeping an eye on tyre tread is an integral part of your car’s maintenance and safety.
But how does the spread of tyre tread affect your driving experience – and why might tyres exhibit more wear and tear on the outside edge compared within the inside edge?
Reasons for Tyre Wear on the Outer Edge
There are several reasons why tyres may look more worn on the outside edge when compared with the rest of the tyre surface. Some of the reasons hint at underlying issues, while others are concerned with driving style.
The first reason is that your tyres are underinflated or are suffering from a slow puncture, which puts heightened pressure on a specific area of the tyre. Underinflation can lead to the edge of a tyre having more weight and pressure placed on it than usual, which leads to increased wear.
Another reason behind excessively worn tyre edges, and one which indicates an underlying issue, is wheel alignment. When your wheels are misaligned or unbalanced, more pressure is placed on the edges of the tyres which causes them to become worn more quickly.
And then we come to the reasons linked with driving style – namely taking corners too sharply, and not braking sufficiently prior to turnings. When you continually and consistently take corners quickly and sharply, you increase the contact between the road surface and the outer edges of tyres. This will see them become worn more quickly as a result of the way you drive and steer the car.
All of these reasons can lead to tyres appearing and becoming more worn on the outer edge – something that you can monitor using a series of techniques including the 20p trick and a tyre tread gauge.
Understanding the Legal Tyre Tread Limit
The minimum legal tyre tread depth in the UK is 1.6mm on road vehicles. While this is the legal minimum, it is widely recommended that vehicle owners keep their tyre tread set to over 2mm for safety and replace tyres as soon as they near this mark.
This tyre tread depth should be consistent across the surface of the vehicle, though if you notice that tyres are more worn on the outside then they may need replacing sooner – even if the tread depth across the rest of the tyre surface is deeper than the legal limit.
To test this, we recommend employing the 20p trick or using the tyre wear indicators that should be painted on the inside of the rubber grooves across your tyre. You can also invest in a tyre tread gauge or ask a professional garage to check the tread depth for you.
