I had a bit of cupping on my rear tires, due to a rear toe alignment issue...I think this is a fairly common problem for Minis...
but I was able to solve my problem...
I rotated the tires to the front, then after several "spirited" runs through the Dragon at MOTD and a day of driving with Blimey and the guys from "cabin 620", I wore enough rubber off my tires that they are no longer cupped....amazing what a few twisty mountain roads will do to a set of tires...spin them hard enough and all that cupping comes right off!
Had a cupping problem with Herself's car before Bertie, a Lexis 250 AWD. (After only 15k miles with rotations every 5k.) Was told the same thing about cupping as this, but Lexus checked everything over and couldn't find anything. Those tires were also Yokahamas that I put on when the original Dunlops wore out. (Lexus had switched to Yokahamas as originals by then.) Service manager took me aside and said they were seeing a lot of this with the Yok's and to check Tire Rack for their recommendation. (Tires won't "un-cup.") I did, and switched to Kuhmos which were ok for the next 25k when we traded in for our MINI.
I went over 100,000 miles on my oem struts & springs. Never had a cupped tire, none never. Could be the rotations. Shock/struts go away gradually. I didn't realize how worn they were until the new JCW suspension was bolted on.
Front drive cars tend to cup rear tiress unless rotated at regular intervals. Babs Skooby had rear tires like that when she bought it. New tires & rotations = round tires after 28,000 miles on them.
I posted this for a friend, who has a 2008, Justa. She had it aligned when the tires when on to the factory spec., and her husband keeps an eye on tire pressure (car guy). She is on a set of Yokohama's, supposedly 60K tires, don't know which one's, they are all season. They haven't been rotated, only the rear ones are cupping on the inside.
Please clarify what you mean by "cupping."<the traditional meaning as seen on most tire wear analysis pictures. They have moved them to the front, the noise is annoying.
Many mini's are running around on their springs with bad struts that are 100% dead....I am surprised more folks don't have cupping tires....
Many folks give mini's a "free pass" for a poor ride thinking it is cause its a sporty car....
But when new, the ride was firm, but not punishing....
To put it in perspective I installed koni FSD'S on my car with about 40,000 miles...the OEM struts were still kinda OK...not dead...but I will tell you they had seen better days...I am amazed when I hear folks with 100,000+ miles on OEM shocks+struts.....remember struts push down and improve handling....a dead shock/strut that only functions as a damper (no rebound, but still not "blown/leaking) is not helping handling.....
I'd look at the shock struts....bet the tire wear is causedcby them...
I had Yoka S-Drives and had cupping issues also. I started 5 K rotations and fixed it with a few Dragon runs also but the tires did not last that long for how I was driving. (Like a nut)
I have Dunlop ZII's and rotate every 3K now since they are a softer tire with much better grip. I get them to last almost 2 trips to the Dragon for a week of very hard driving. The rest of the Summer they only do little local trips and then the Winter rims and tires go on.
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