I’m alarmed at the rate of wear on the sidewall of my front tyre. It’s a Continental Mountain King II which I bought 10th September 2012, and Strava logs show I’ve only done about 130 miles in that time (I’m not lazy, I’ve been using other bikes mainly!). A large proportion of which have been on road to/between the Surrey Hills.

Photos below show threads starting to appear close to the bead. I’ve pictured the worst part, but it’s not too dissimilar all the way round. It affects both sides, though one noticeably more than the other.

I’m thinking this seems a bit too quick to be at this stage and wondering if it’s worth chasing up with Conti/the shop I bought it from. What do you think – report as a faulty or suck it up and don’t buy again?

Continental Mountain King II Tyre Wear by allyharp, on Flickr

Untitled by allyharp, on Flickr

is the rim sharp?

Too low pressure?

Pressure was my first thought, don’t know how much luck you’ll have with a complaint on an 8 month old tyre but if you feel it’s faulty then why not report it, all they can do is say no.

Looking at how it was seated, the marks were all a good few mm above where the tyre entered the rim. Of course under heavy load I’m sure it would sink further.

I don’t really measure pressures but they must be around 40 most of the time. Certainly not too low as I’m on the road a fair bit. Don’t think the rim is sharp either (will have a feel) but it’s pretty new.

I’m not too shocked at that, my Barons are wearing the sidewalls stupidly fast- not quite the same as that, and not as fast, but they’re going to die long before the tread does. Quite surprising as they’re not light. I gather the Rubber Queens I sold also wore through the sidewalls. Conti seem to be doing something wrong there.

For barons at least it’s offset against them being the best big-bike mud tyre by a country mile.

Looks like damage from being scored with a metal tyre lever or gritty rides with tyre slipping on a relatively narrow rim. Seen that on plenty of my Kenda DH tires, but presume not with this tyre as they come on/off with no tools on my rims.

I easily run a full season on a single front MKII, the rear tyre shows much more sidewall wear and I need to replace my rear once to get through a season..
I figure the rear tyre wears faster as I dont get to choose the best line for the rear as I can for the front and drag it through the rocks etc as a result.. I get threads showing relatively quickly but nothing like what your picture shows. I also replace sooner than necessary as I’m anal and don’t like things to look tired 😉

I run at 20-25psi so get some significant sidewall deflection.
The rubber overlay is pretty thin on some tyres.. gets thicker with protection sidewalls, RTR and obviously UST versions.

I’m pretty sure the tyre pictured is also old stock.. not current generation rubber as far as I can tell from the logo. Is it a wire beaded tire taken off a bike with that tyre as oem fitment? Hanging in the shop for a while before you picked them up?

I’d still go back to the shop.. the presence of the mold riser knobs are a good sign of relatively little use. See what they say.

I bought two of these, 2.2, one of them wore out even quicker than that. It was like that on both sides, pretty much all the way round. I was surprised and put it down to a bad tyre. The other one is still fine but I keep an eye on it.

I’ve got tyres that look like that, I’ve carried on using them. Doesn’t seem to make any difference to their performance

Thread resurection alert!

My Continental XC-King rear tyre ‘exploded’ last night after 580 Miles. There was a 2.5 inch tear in the sidewall about 3mm above the wheel rim. They look very similar to the photos above, but the wear in the photo above is replaced by a split in my tyre. Searching on here there are a few stories of sidewall concerns on Continental tyres.

Frustratingly there is good tread still left on the front, but I am now thinking of replacing that at the same time as a front tyre failing in a similar way could be a bit too exciting for me!

Any thoughts on why this happened? Bad batch of tyres? Badly fitted/repaired? Under inflated or just plain bad make of tyre?

Mine haven’t worn like that but all my singleply contis have sidewall issues- threads coming loose etc. On the Barons, there doesn’t seem to be any chance of the sidewall lasting as long as the tread.

I had the same problem with a continental vertical.