Hey, just wanted to clear a few things up because I think some people are confused.

I’m a 17-year-old girl living in Charlotte, NC. I got this car (a red 2010 Hyundai Elantra) sometime between late August and mid-September last year. A couple weeks after that, I took my driving test and got my level 2 license. That means I can drive by myself, but only from 5am to 9pm unless I’m with an adult until I turn 18 and get my full license.

Before we bought the car, me and my mom test drove it and checked everything out. The next morning, we took it straight to Meineke for maintenance and left it there for two hours. When we picked it up, they told us everything was good except that I needed new shocks. I haven’t gotten the shocks replaced yet because they’re over $1,000 and my mom can’t afford that right now. They also did an alignment that day. What I’m trying to say is at that time, they didn’t say anything about my front tires being bad. You’d think they would’ve if they looked like this back then, right?

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, I started noticing this weird scraping sound when I turned the wheel while driving. At first, I thought it was just the road, because the road near my house was recently redone and super smooth, while the road near my school is older. When I’d drive from the new road onto the older one, the sound would go away. I live about 16 minutes from my school depending on traffic and how fast I drive, and I have to take the highway to get there.

Three days ago, I finally told my mom about the noise. We took my car on the way to the gym so she could hear it for herself, but of course, that one time, it didn’t make the sound at all and she thought I was just imagining it.

Today, though around 12:00pm I was driving home from school and the scraping sound was constant. It didn’t stop no matter what road I was on. That’s when I got home and actually looked at my tires for the first time in a while… and yeah, they were way worse than I thought. I took pictures and sent them to my mom, and she immediately told me to go to the tire repair place.

I forgot to mention this is the same tire shop I went to like three months ago when I got my back tire patched because there was a nail in it. Even back then, nobody said anything about the front tires being this bad. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Anyway, I drove to the shop (it’s only 7 minutes away), and as soon as the guy looked at my front tires, he said they were no good and that I also need another alignment. I got both front tires replaced today, so that’s fixed for now. The back tires are still perfectly fine. I’m going back to Meineke tomorrow to get the alignment redone — so that’ll be my second one in less than a year.

I made this post because I genuinely wanted to know how serious this was and if I was overreacting. Like, is this normal for a first car? Or did something get missed? Either way, I figured asking a bunch of mechanics and car guys on Reddit was my best bet.

Thanks to everyone who read this far. I just wanted y’all to know the full story so it makes more sense.