I have an 04 STi running Yokohama ES100s. As of late I noticed that tire drone is getting louder. After checking the tires, I noticed that they are all cupping. I've kept the reccomended interval to rotate. I've had this problem before with my previous cars, but they had aftermarket suspensions. My car is completely stock, what could be causing the cupping? Someone suggested my tire pressure and driving habits. My tire pressure is just slightly higher than reccomended and with a wife and two kids in the car most of the time, lets just say that driving is very sane. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Your tires will cup if you over inflate your tires. What is the recommended psi and what are you running?

 

You should probably run a few psi less due to how warm it is here all the time thats what I do when you drive and your tires heat up your tire pressure goes up also, so try running a few psi less and see how that works it should almost equal out.

 

When did you last balance the tires?

 

Tires were balanced about a year ago. I run a few psi higher than reccomended. I am an old schooler who is used to 15" wheels with a lot of sidewall for protection. The roads here are so bad, I am scared of bending a wheel on our infamous potholes. Factory reccomendations are 36 front and 30 rear. I was running about 38 front 34 rear. I've always thought that a little higher pressures were good for "spirited" driving. Were my pressures too high and possibly caused the cupping? I've lowered the tire pressures to factory reccomendations now, it's probably too late for my current tires, but hey, live and learn. BTW what pressures are you other STis out there running?

 

How far do you drive in a year? With performance tires you should rotate every 3-4 k at first and then rotate every 6-8k. I'd have the tires balanced - although I have never seen a tire cup from too much air pressure, I have seen plenty of tires cupping from being out of balance, lack of rotation & bad suspension parts.

 

My car is a little over a year old, and I have roughly 10K on the car. Tires were rotated once as reccomended by service along with an oil change. While running the reccomended tire pressures, the car seems a little less precise. Mahalo for your responses.