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Tire wear question

15K views 15 replies 8 participants last post by  vortmax 
#1 ·
I have this oddball wear pattern on my front tires and was wondering if anyone knew what caused it.

Here is the passenger side:


Driver side:


You can see that the shoulders are wearing out faster than the inner tread, but I have kept them at 35 PSI their entire life. Also, the drivers side of each tire (outside of driver's side and inside of passenger side) is wearing faster, making me think it's not excessive camber or toe.

These are 235 section tires on stock 16 in rims, which is pretty narrow. Could that be making them wear funny? Would running a narrower tire require more pressure? Also, I had the truck aligned when I got the tires (2005), and the alignment guy said he couldn't pull enough caster to get it into spec (and it drives that way). Could a piss ton of caster and road crown do this?

FWIW I can't rotate the tires, as these tires are directional and the rears are wider than the fronts. So they are stuck where they are until I get new ones (which will probably be this summer if this keeps up).
 

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#2 ·
You need an alignment. The wheels are pointed inward, tie rods need to be adjusted.
 
#3 ·
I figured excessive toe would wear symmetrically (inside or outside edges).

Assuming the truck was aligned to start with, what would cause toe in to increase (tie rods shortening)? I did get the tires right after the drop, but don't think the springs settled that much. I also know my control arm bushings are on their way out. Could slop in those do this?
 
#4 · (Edited)
Only other thing other then i mentioned would be positive camber, not an issue with lowered, they are negative camber.

I don't think it was aligned right from the start, besides it's been a while. If the springs settled, the insides would be more worn, not the outside. unless your tie rods are now above the horizontal line, then it could be the outside again
 
#5 ·
Looks like under-inflation to me but you stated you've kept them @ 35psi. Have you used the same pressure gauge or checked it against others for accuracy?

You'll more than likely see chords before summer unless you don't plan on doing much driving....I'd get them replaced ASAP.
 
#6 ·
Underpressure would be both side walls, this is one sidewall!

Edit: You may be correct, Need a better pic.
 
#7 ·
Both tires do show signs of underinflation. When I had the tires mounted, the guy mentioned he had issues getting the bead to seat because they were right on the edge of being too narrow, so I'm wondering if that would cause issues or require a higher than normal inflation pressure.

The outside edge of the driver's side tire is the worst, with the inside edge of the passenger tire being second, and the other two edges being the same. The middle tread looks new still. I can try for better pics tomorrow. The truck drives straight with no pulling, but it does feel like it has quite a bit of caster. Steering is firm to the point of feeling like an old manual rack without the speed dependence.
 
#8 ·
Tire width looks ok, check that air pressure asap.
 
#11 ·
regardless of what caused it, take it into a shop and put it on a rack where they can tell what's going on. maybe you wore out the outside, then the springs settled, now you're wearing the inside?

this is why I haven't put mine on a rack yet since I lowered it. I only drove it 1,000-1300 miles last year, but it's sat with weight on the springs for a year now, almsot a year and 3 months, so I plan on going in next week to get it aligned now that my springs have settled.

you could get some more miles out of those tires by jacking the air up to 44 psi...that max pressure the tires will allow. it MIGHT cause the tread to balloon out so you can start using the middle of the tires!:jester:

for what it's worth, I always air my tires up HIGHER than what the sticker says...typically I set them at around 40 PSI, then monitor the tread wear pattern and adjust accordingly. I always get nice even tread wear, and with more air and a stiffer sidewall that flexes less, you'll get an increase of 1 or 2 MPGs
 
#12 ·
I jacked the driver's side tire off the ground and poked around. There is no play in the ball joints (uppers were replaced through the recall a few years back) and no play that I could see in the tie rod ends.

Here are some better pictures:

This is the outside driver's side where the wear is the greatest. It's even, but there does appear to be some minor scalloping


Here is the other side of the same tire. The tread is worn but nowhere near as bad.


The last 3 are the passenger side. Looking at it closer, I do think that the stock air pressure rating is too low causing the excessive shoulder wear on both tires, but there is something else going on with the right tire that is chewing up that side even more.

The tires are currently at 35 psi. I'm going to up them to 40 and see what happens.

70Cuda,
I'm not going to throw it on a rack quite yet. The front tires have some pretty good cracks from sitting in one spot all winter, so I'm going to replace them this fall. One of my planned projects this summer is replacing all of the front end bushings anyway, so when all of that is said and done, It will be going in.
The last
 

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#16 ·
Off ramps? No, and I haven't driven on a free way like that in a while. Even when I did, it was less then 10% of my normal driving. Depending on traffic and my mood, I do like to get up to merging speeds while still on the on ramp, but with my lack of highyway driving, that works out to only a few times a month, and none at all in the past 2 years.
 
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