Groove wander, similar to tramlining, is a lateral force acting on a vehicle's wheel resulting from the combination of rain grooves (grooves cut into roads to mitigate

hydroplaning Aquaplaning or hydroplaning by the tires of a road vehicle, aircraft or other wheeled vehicle occurs when a layer of water builds between the wheels of the vehicle and the road surface, leading to a loss of traction that prevents the vehicle fr ...

in light rain conditions) and contoured deformations in the road surface upon which the wheel runs. When the

contact patch Contact patch is the portion of a vehicle's tire that is in actual contact with the road surface. It is commonly used in the discussion of pneumatic (i.e. pressurized) tires, where the term is used strictly to describe the portion of the tire’s ...

of the

tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a Rim (wheel), wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide Traction (engineering), t ...

does not form to match the contours of the road surface the stiff tire edges tend to ride on and be guided (or tramlined) by the rain grooves within the surface contour. This force is greater than the contact patch can counter and the resultant force is delivered to the wheel hub and

axle An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearing ...

, pushing the car laterally. When all four wheels are acted upon in this way, the vehicle can experience rapid forces occurring from side to side and corner to corner (similar to encountering wind gusts, only from all four directions instead of just one). A mismatch between tire design and vehicle weight, or vehicle

suspension Suspension or suspended may refer to: Science and engineering * Suspension (topology), in mathematics * Suspension (dynamical systems), in mathematics * Suspension of a ring, in mathematics * Suspension (chemistry), small solid particles suspend ...

design, or simply

wheel alignment Wheel alignment sometimes referred to as breaking, or tracking is part of standard automobile maintenance that consists of adjusting the angles of wheels to the car manufacturer specifications. The purpose of these adjustments is to reduce tire ...

can all contribute to how severe the effect is. Tire tread pattern can also cause, with straight grooved tires more susceptible to groove wander than diagonal or zig zag threads.

References

{{Tires, state=collapsed Driving

See also

References