Fix It and keep it

We are the proud owners of a 2003 Toyota Matrix XR. For the most part it has been a really good car except for the way it wears out the edges of the rear tires. I have taken it to several tire shops and they all seen to say that either the problem is with the shock absorbers or it needs a rear wheel alignment.

Most tire dealers also mentioned that after you have the rear wheels aligned the car may pull to one side of the road all of the time. Since the car doesn’t pull at all now I decided not to do the alignment.

One other important thing to look out for is when you have the tires replaced pay attention to the direction of rotation stamped on the side of many tire brands that fit that car. The tire shop installed two new tires on the car and never paid attention to the direction of rotation and I never thought to look at it. I just let them do their job and install the tires. Well, around two thousand miles after the tires were installed the grinding noise started in the rear of the car again. I checked the tires and sure enough the tire with the rotation backwards was wearing rapidly on the inside. I contacted the tire shop and they told me that they wouldn’t make a mistake like that and besides the rotation makes no difference in the tires performance. I wasn’t sure what to believe. If it didn’t make any difference why put a direction of rotation on the tire in the first place.

I found out that to keep the tires from wearing out on the edges you have to keep a close eye on the tread wear every thousand miles. Once you see that the outside edges of the tire are colored differently that means that the surface of the tires are not contacting the road surface evenly and the tread is beginning to wear in the lighter colored areas. This usually happens at two thousand miles. Even though the owner’s manual recommends rotating the tires every three thousand miles that is too late. The tires will have cupped by then. It has been working great for us during the past year to rotate the tires every two thousand miles. If you are already having the problem because your tires are cupped out you may be able to save them by reversing the direction of their rotation. You will, for example, have to have your tire shop swap the tire from the left side and put it on the right side rim and do the same with the other tire. If the tire is too bad though it will have to be replaced. Once you have the tires reversed or replaced then rotate them every two thousand miles.

Bob Crane is the author of http://www.toyota-matrix-cuv.com - a site that helps many find what they need for their Matrix.