excessive and abnormal rear tire wear

[Jim W]

A couple of things that I have noticed about this thread are: 1) The air pressure on the rear tires is 80 PSI by some of the users. 2) The higher inflation pressure is always kept in the rear tire regardless of towing or not. 3) some user cannot get decent tire mileage (wear) out of their tires. Correct???

Will I went back and checked my records on my truck. I replaced the original equipment tires on the truck at 41,750 miles with tread still left on them. Michelins tires were on sale and it was the beginning of the camping season wanted new tires for towing. I now have 27,000 miles on the Michelin tires and they are rotated every 6,000 miles. Some of the things that I do are; I run regular air in the tires (I do not see any advantage with the use of nitrogen in LT or car tires). I air up and down the tire pressure constantly lowering the air pressure to 50 PSI in the rear when not towing and 70 PSI when towing. 70 PSI is the recommend air pressure on the 2008 Mega Cab air pressure tire placard for the maximum permissible load for a 2500 Mega Cab. I only check the tire air pressure when the tires are cold, never adjust them after any driving miles are on them unless the tires are cold (3 to 4 hour wait). I do not tow to the maximum capacity of the truck GVCW; I still have a 10% capacity of the maximum weight as reserved.

Jim W.

 

[AH64ID]

Tire wear is one of my main frustrations with this truck. Admittingly the application is not easy on tires, I have over 800 ft/lbs of torque to the rear wheels and do a fair amount of towing at 18K GCW and a lot of that is on dirt roads.



Even still the wear rate is absurd. My first set of 285/70/17's (with a decent amount more tread than OEM size) was down to 5/32's at 27K miles. 5/32's is as low as I like to run a tire during the winter, but based on circumstance I ran them out to 40K miles and only got warranty on 2. My trailer was lighter for these tires and I daily drive the truck, pretty low tire life.



I then switched to a 255/80/17 and did some towing the first year and took them from 18 to 12. 8/32's in 8700 miles. I haven't towed with those tires since, but they have 16,800 miles on them and are down to 10/32's, oh yeah I run 5 of them in the normal rotation. I would be even lower with just 4. Since the first year all they see is winter/hunting use.



My summer/towing tires are OEM LTX's. 3 of the 4 are matched, and 1 is newer since I punctured one 2 years ago. The 3 have 20,011 miles on them and are at just under 6/32's. At that wear rate I will get 32K miles on them before they hit 2/32's. 53% of the miles have been towing, and many of them on dirt (thou I try to use 4wd to spread the torque out).



Tires are just too much money to get such crappy life out of them.



At this point I am thinking of going with 19. 5" wheels and 245/70/19. 5 for a harder compound and better load rating.

 

[AMink]

I don't drive hard, but I do drive on a lot of dirt roads during the camping and hunting seasons. I know the little cuts, chips, and chunks will reduce tire life. I also believe it has a lot to do where you live. In Nevada, it's uphill everywhere. That right there will put more stress on the drive tires especially when towing. Still, I would expect to get at least 30,000 out of a set of good tires. I rotate and run the air up and down depending on what I'm doing. Light duty for an '06 Mega is 40psi rear, 50psi front.