What can cause this wear

[Creek]

(09-03-2019 )Rawze Wrote:  ...
I stood there, watching them,,.. and asked "why did you offset the rear axles like that?" ... and the reply was "because of more than 2,000 trucks in the fleet, offsetting them a bit prevents eating steer tires vs. when they are perfectly straight. Adjusting it a bit saves us a bunch of money on tires every year". ... They then went on to tweak and adjust on several other things as well that they knew they had repeating problems with. Things like re-torquing air-bag retaining bolts that tend to come loose on new truck, re-torquing the u-bolts to maximum allowed torque, grinding out the alignment stud holes for the front air bags to prevent pre-mature failure when they move around/settle., replacing the levelling valves with an updated valve body, re-torquing the tranny mounting bolts, a bunch of other things.

Guy stood there and (roughly) said to me that these newer trucks are like buying a cbhineesuim machine tool. - You gotta take it apart and finish/fix all the crap the maker was in too much of a hurry to do properly on a friday afternoon. When you buy and send 500 at a time into service, you tend to see that repeating pattern of mistakes pretty fast.

Well I stand corrected in my assumption. I guess my problem now would be finding someone who could properly align the truck to compensate for the crown in the road. There are no shops, no technician that gives a rats ass about doing proper work.

If you don't mind me asking. Why would a megafleet sell a truck with only 13 miles on it. I am sure its in your blog somewhere. Just curious. Thanks

[Lonestar10]

Most mega fleets if you work for them will let you order a new truck using their discount unless they run fleece to owns. I know Crete let one guy buy a new t680 o/o spec with their discount and another guy a WS 5700xe plus Crete financed them and if I remember correctly when I looked into program they financed them for the drivers to with super low interest.

[Rawze]

(09-04-2019 )Creek Wrote:  

(09-03-2019 )Rawze Wrote:  ...
I stood there, watching them,,.. and asked "why did you offset the rear axles like that?" ... and the reply was "because of more than 2,000 trucks in the fleet, offsetting them a bit prevents eating steer tires vs. when they are perfectly straight. Adjusting it a bit saves us a bunch of money on tires every year". ... They then went on to tweak and adjust on several other things as well that they knew they had repeating problems with. Things like re-torquing air-bag retaining bolts that tend to come loose on new truck, re-torquing the u-bolts to maximum allowed torque, grinding out the alignment stud holes for the front air bags to prevent pre-mature failure when they move around/settle., replacing the levelling valves with an updated valve body, re-torquing the tranny mounting bolts, a bunch of other things.

Guy stood there and (roughly) said to me that these newer trucks are like buying a cbhineesuim machine tool. - You gotta take it apart and finish/fix all the crap the maker was in too much of a hurry to do properly on a friday afternoon. When you buy and send 500 at a time into service, you tend to see that repeating pattern of mistakes pretty fast.

Well I stand corrected in my assumption. I guess my problem now would be finding someone who could properly align the truck to compensate for the crown in the road. There are no shops, no technician that gives a rats ass about doing proper work.

You are absolutely right. However, you can measure and offset your rear tandems yourself pretty easily. Just measure center of axle hub to center of axle hub on each side. Adjust only the tandem closest to the cab, so that there is about 1/8" less on the drivers side vs passenger side between them and it will get you close in most circumstances. The rear tandem should be the only one that is perfectly aligned to the front axle. ref: http://rawze.com/forums/showthread.php?t...0#pid16060

(09-04-2019 )Creek Wrote:  If you don't mind me asking. Why would a megafleet sell a truck with only 13 miles on it. I am sure its in your blog somewhere. Just curious. Thanks

I got lucky .. very lucky. I got the truck brand new at its wholesale cost. Only condition is that I had to keep it in their fleet for 3 years unless I was willing to pay the retail difference.

This was in September of 2010 mind you. Purchase price for a brand spanking Prostar Premium (off the lot), 2011 truck, 3:55 rears, isx 871, at that time price was $149,000 and even the listed fleet discount price was $92,500.

I got it for exactly what they paid for it ... a grand total of $88,000 dollars. They buy 500 of them at a time minimum though, hence it was so cheap.


I learned a lot about trucks, mega-fleeces, and how they buy trucks in bulk back then during that time. I also learned a lot about how some mega-fleeces rip their own O/O's off using this discount too. Thankfully this did not happen to me, but then again, I would have more than likely spotted it and would not have gone through with a bad deal like that to begin with.

[flatbed94kid]

i have over 100,000 now on my steer tires. They look good still knock on wood.

What is the average lifespan of a steer tire or should be?

If you guys remember I did get an alignment at a T/A and I did adjust my steering wheel a

bit as my wheel was crooked. So far it is pretty decent rolling down the road.

Now yes my truck will drift pretty quickly if i were to let my hands off the wheel. Like 2 seconds.

So I still need to grasp this on exactly how to do this alignment. And how to properly measure those parts. I doubt I have anything worn out but just to be sure.

Also can anyone here clarify on how to read the decimal numbers when measuring?

I keep getting confused the more .00 or .000 etc.

[Creek]

(09-04-2019 )Rawze Wrote:  

(09-04-2019 )Creek Wrote:  

(09-03-2019 )Rawze Wrote:  ...
I stood there, watching them,,.. and asked "why did you offset the rear axles like that?" ... and the reply was "because of more than 2,000 trucks in the fleet, offsetting them a bit prevents eating steer tires vs. when they are perfectly straight. Adjusting it a bit saves us a bunch of money on tires every year". ... They then went on to tweak and adjust on several other things as well that they knew they had repeating problems with. Things like re-torquing air-bag retaining bolts that tend to come loose on new truck, re-torquing the u-bolts to maximum allowed torque, grinding out the alignment stud holes for the front air bags to prevent pre-mature failure when they move around/settle., replacing the levelling valves with an updated valve body, re-torquing the tranny mounting bolts, a bunch of other things.

Guy stood there and (roughly) said to me that these newer trucks are like buying a cbhineesuim machine tool. - You gotta take it apart and finish/fix all the crap the maker was in too much of a hurry to do properly on a friday afternoon. When you buy and send 500 at a time into service, you tend to see that repeating pattern of mistakes pretty fast.

Well I stand corrected in my assumption. I guess my problem now would be finding someone who could properly align the truck to compensate for the crown in the road. There are no shops, no technician that gives a rats ass about doing proper work.

You are absolutely right. However, you can measure and offset your rear tandems yourself pretty easily. Just measure center of axle hub to center of axle hub on each side. Adjust only the tandem closest to the cab, so that there is about 1/8" less on the drivers side vs passenger side between them and it will get you close in most circumstances. The rear tandem should be the only one that is perfectly aligned to the front axle. ref: http://rawze.com/forums/showthread.php?t...0#pid16060

(09-04-2019 )Creek Wrote:  If you don't mind me asking. Why would a megafleet sell a truck with only 13 miles on it. I am sure its in your blog somewhere. Just curious. Thanks

I got lucky .. very lucky. I got the truck brand new at its wholesale cost. Only condition is that I had to keep it in their fleet for 3 years unless I was willing to pay the retail difference.

This was in September of 2010 mind you. Purchase price for a brand spanking Prostar Premium (off the lot), 2011 truck, 3:55 rears, isx 871, at that time price was $149,000 and even the listed fleet discount price was $92,500.

I got it for exactly what they paid for it ... a grand total of $88,000 dollars. They buy 500 of them at a time minimum though, hence it was so cheap.


I learned a lot about trucks, mega-fleeces, and how they buy trucks in bulk back then during that time. I also learned a lot about how some mega-fleeces rip their own O/O's off using this discount too. Thankfully this did not happen to me, but then again, I would have more than likely spotted it and would not have gone through with a bad deal like that to begin with.

Ahh ok that's good information. I appreciate it.

[Lonestar10]

well got my truck back tire just became severly out of round coulda got a few thousand more miles out of that one if i had caught it sooner and took it in and had them rounded otherwise just my Toe was out a hair rest of truck was perfect. back to cruisen our shitty interstates with barely having to have a hand on the wheel going straight an true.

[Lonestar10]

Tire wasn't miss mounted but ive been in a lot places my on road truck didn't belong that prob did it