Tires: Cuffing Tires, struts, shocks

Question
Recently, I found out that my struts were leaking and caused all 4 tires to cuff.  The dealer recommended replacing the tires in order to get rid of the excess humming that it's caused as well as the pulling on the road.  Is replacing the tires necessary or just an issue of noise and pull?  Another mechanic told us that the tires, after the struts are replaced, would wear back to normal and be fine.  We have 70% tread left on our tires.  Thanks for any help!

Answer
Thomas,

I think the term you are looking for is "cupping".  Cupping is generally caused by bad shocks or an out of balance condition, however, the term is sometimes applied to irregular wear (due to alignment and lack of rotation) or heel and toe wear (due to alignment).  Obviously the shocks were the source of the problem.

Will the tire wear back to even wear?  Maybe.  It depends on how bad they are.  It is possible that they might get worse.  Once a tire has a wear pattern, you can't add rubber back into the tire, so you have to overwhelm the "bad" pattern by having everything just right, including the alignment.

Usually this works.

Hope this helps.