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 (engineering), traction that ...

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

tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over which 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, 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 suspende ...

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