Tires wearing oddly, need help

[cold Diesel]

Please bear with me as this is long. My truck is scrubbing both the inside and outside edges off both the front tires. The dealer blames the tires and says the alignment and front end are good? The tire shop is blaming the front end and alignment? The tires are 305/70/16 D load range on stock rims and are inflated to 50 psi (max) up front and 40 psi in the back. The tire shop suggested the tires were underinflated until I pointed out they were at the max rated pressure up front. Also when I picked the truck up brand new it pulled left hard, so they aligned it before I took delivery. The truck also has a nasty wander and is hard to drive straight, especially with a trailer on it (4600 lbs, 400 lbs tongue weight). Truck has 10K miles on it now.

Any ideas or suggestion would be of great help as I am at a loss but my tires are wrecked after 10K and the stealer & tire dealer say I have to pay for them



Thanks in advance

 

[lizzyhermit]

have you rotated the tires? I "overlooked" keeping the rotation current and started to get some interesting patterns.

 

[Doc Tinker]

Wear pattern like you describe usually indicates under inflation. Have you rotated the tires after the wear on one side, then have it wear on the other side?



Doc

 

[Rams-n-Hogs]

I had a similar problem with my 96 4x4. Replaced shocks and steering stabilizer and it seems to have cured it. Granted, at 10000 miles, those items shouldn't be a problem.

 

[rspinks]

What's the load rating in lbs/kg on the sidewall of the tire, and are they mounted on steel 7. 5", aluminum 8" or other size rims? 305/70 doesn't seem to be as common as 285/75, 295/75 or even 315/75 so maybe you have a situation where the front axle weight is near the load rating of the tire and you are suffering underinflation symptoms (wearing at the edges) even though you're at the max PSI of the tire. This would suck because then inflating past 50psi would be required.



BTW my truck steers like crap as well, my '94 had much better on-center feel. My dealer recommends increasing the caster over stock to give better on-center feel at the expense of steering effort but I'm gonna do more alignment research first.

 

[cold Diesel]

The tires were rotated at 5K, again today. Rotated front to back.



Doc, the tires are scrubbing both sides of both front tires at the same time.



rspinks the tires are rated at 2810 lbs @ 50 psi



The tire store owner today told me that the truck is 'leaning' on the edges during cornering and that all trucks with oversize tires do so. Is that true? Anyone else with bigger tires have this problem?



Thanks again.

 

[rspinks]

Dunno what to say, you should be under 2810lb per front tire though maybe not by much. Wearing on each edge really indicates under-inflation rather than alignment. I would try running 55psi if I were in your situation but that's your call, obviously you'd be outside the recommended limits.

 

[JHansen]

You know Alex I never thought to ask you before-or look at your signature up until now. Obviously you have the 8" wide aluminum wheels-so you're still within recommmended rim widths-and a narrower wheel should make the center wear out as opposed to the edges. I run my 315's around 40 psi to keep the centers from completely wearing out. I'm hard on tires anyways-all the gravel I see eats them up in short order. I got 40000 km out of the last set of 315's and was tickled to get that-the 285 Sport Kings I ran before that made 27000 km and were all done .



As a real long shot-have you checked your tire pressure gauge against another? It'd have to be way wacky-but I suppose there's a first time for everything... ... trying to toss whatever I can dig out against the wall in hopes that something'll stick!



J

 

[osmith]

305/70

I'm running 305/70's (see sig) and am not experiencing the same wear that you are describing. Although I have a pull to the left when breaking, but I think that is a separate issue, as I've seen complaints about his before with my year of truck. I have kept on top of the tire rotation to ensure that they wear more evenly, but it looks as though you have as well.



I will have a closer look at the wear of my tires and try to post back soon if I find anything.





Good luck. .

 

[cold Diesel]

The tire store owner called me tonight and offered to trade for for a set of 315/75/16 Yokahama Geolander MT for an extra $30 per tire. He is now saying the Cooper Durango AT's that I have 'might' be the problem. The yokos are the only 315's that Kal Tire sell but they have no siping for ice. Anyone tried them?

Also I have 3 psi gages and the psi is correct.



Thanks again.

 

[JHansen]

Man I'd love to have Geolanders----but that's just me talking. I run bargain basement Wild Spirit DTX's-kind of a hybrid between MT and AT. Just the right tread spacing to pick up gravel but they are extremely cheap for their size-and they wear just as well as expensive ones.



J

 

[rspinks]

Sounds like a good deal to me. FWIW I've had 255/85 BFG MT's and now 285/75 Goodyear MTR's and had both sets siped for winter driving with excellent results. I've never had tires not siped so can't comment on the wear but snow/ice/wet traction is massively improved as you are probably aware.

 

[98rammer]

cold diesel, i stepped up from 245's to 285/75's after i got my truck going from load range E to load range D. boy i hate these tires! they're wearing horribly (haven't been able to get it aligned). these things make the truck wander everywhere... . very hard to keep straight! they're noisy (which i expected) due to the agressive tread. it's hard to keep my truck straight on a bumpy road so i'm gonna look into trackbars, etc. even after being aligned, my dad's ex 94 3500 2wd wore wrong and pulled to the right. ah well, i'm gonna go to load range E with a higher psi rating and medium agressive/harder tread next time. btw, my dad just got some toyo tires for his chevy... . definately worth looking into!

 

[cold Diesel]

fixed!!

Well I finally got it resolved today. I went to 3 tire shops and they all had the opignion that the tires were defective, and that it was obvious to them. Went back to Kal Tire and told them I didn't like being lied to and demanded my money back. After some argument they gave me 100% of my money back. I went down the road to Tirecraft and got a set of BFG AT KO's in a 315/75/16 put on the truck. What a difference!!! The wander is gone and the truck drives so much better I am in shock. Had to make sure they didn't replace the front end in there. I only have 100km on them so far. I will get to really try them out tomorrow as I am going on a 1000 Km roadtrip to meet some of the Alberta Bombers in Edmonton.

 

[jimk]

[ The things that I have found that will wear the tires are camber, toe in or out , balance, and mabey tire seperation. Caster does not cause the tires to wear. If it is possible I like to have a degree of positive caster more in the right than the left to help for the crown of the road. I dont like to run a lot of camber, an a little toe in, not much, but not 0 or toe out.

Because the dodger is made the way it is I dont think the caster can be adjusted that way, but not sure.

Several years ago my dad had the first generation dodge which was a 4x4 and that truck would wear the heck out of the tires. I told dad that there was shims to fix the terrible negative camber. My father was shop forman and the draftsman for a large machine shop. We took a very good level and used it to judge much to machine of the back side of the bearing supports. After the machine work the tires sat plumb or 0 camber. We readjusted the toe in and never had any trouble and the old truck drove a lot better. lol Jimk







QUOTE]Originally posted by cold Diesel

Please bear with me as this is long. My truck is scrubbing both the inside and outside edges off both the front tires. The dealer blames the tires and says the alignment and front end are good? The tire shop is blaming the front end and alignment? The tires are 305/70/16 D load range on stock rims and are inflated to 50 psi (max) up front and 40 psi in the back. The tire shop suggested the tires were underinflated until I pointed out they were at the max rated pressure up front. Also when I picked the truck up brand new it pulled left hard, so they aligned it before I took delivery. The truck also has a nasty wander and is hard to drive straight, especially with a trailer on it (4600 lbs, 400 lbs tongue weight). Truck has 10K miles on it now.

Any ideas or suggestion would be of great help as I am at a loss but my tires are wrecked after 10K and the stealer & tire dealer say I have to pay for them



Thanks in advance [/QUOTE]