Abstract A formalism has been developed to analyze tire force data when asymmetries resulting from the intrinsic characteristics of the tires occur. Identifying and eliminating spurious signals from the measuring equipment has been found to be simple. The formalism is based on the decomposition of the force in independent terms, characterized by well-defined symmetry properties. As an application, lateral force asymmetries are analyzed. Further, the concepts of pseudocamber and pseudoslip are generalized to include slip angles different from zero.