Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

Crafter

3 months ago I purchased 8 new drives and 2 new steers for my truck. I sent it in for a 3 axle alignment when I noticed my driver side rear axle was a little off. Not that it wore my tires down, when I was following the truck with my personal car I noticed the wheels a little wobbly. The alignment guy said he had to tighten/adjust my bearings on the driver side.

2 months into the new drives the passenger inside tire stripped itself bald. I couldn't afford much so I purchased a recap to get me home. On the way home my passenger outer one stripped itself bald. (By that I mean it took the meat part off and left me with a flat surface). I went in and purchased another recap to get me home.

When I got home, the guy who sold me the tires said it's probably a defect of the tires, he warrantied one of them since I brought it back but couldn't help me with the other.
Yesterday I stripped my inside one again.

I have to ask, what could be the possible reason for this? How the hell are 6 of my tires working fine and suddenly I'm stripping the same 2 tires on the same axle over and over again.
Could it be that my breaks are locking up while I’m driving?

Any help is appreciated. I have posted a picture to explain what I mean by stripping of the tire.

first stripping picture

Waterloo

How many miles on the truck? Model? I'm thinking suspension pin bushings, torque rods, and or wheel bearings. To me this does not look like a tire problem, but mechanical. I doubt it is your brakes... Looks more suspension related.

Magard

Not knowing every thing that happened exactly but from the pictures it looks like a tire height miss match. Maybe originally air pressure got low on one. The tire that is shorter will wear off in a day. It amazing how little tire guys know about tires. I've learned that cheap or out of round brake drums give you that never ending tire bounce going down the road. Cheap Chinese tires aren't truly round. Even some of the Japanese tire suck. Wheel bearing loose enough to be able to see it watching it go down the road not going to happen unless the whole bearing is completely shot. You were seeing a out of round or out of balance tire. I had a kenworth dealer charge me for a alignment and I put new fire stones on the front. Week later I thought I noticed a inside wear pattern. The truck drove straight but I thought the tires looked funny. I checked the air psi and seen that the dealer had aired down one side to create resistance and make it drive straight. I took my homemade toe pointer and seen that it was toed out. I crawled under the truck seen wrench tracks but when I went to turn it out I couldn't budge it. Wound up with a cheater on a pipe wrench with a floor jack on the cheater and a torch heating the threaded ends to get it to turn. I was pissed. A holes charged me for a none existent alignment to ruin my 800 dollars worth of tires. It's rediculous when you have to do your own alignment with cave man tools to get your truck to drive right.

Waterloo

I think you caught it Magard! Chinese tires... Out of ROUND. But, I would still insect the suspension. I'm old school, when tires were made in the USA... Rarely if ever got a bad one, much less an entire set.

Rawze

Check air pressure to make sure it matches between the 2 tires too.

Re-torque all wheel bearings, not just the one with the defective tires. Sometimes it is the other side that will cause unusual wear.

Always replace tires as a set, One will eat the other up if there is a tread or size mis-match on 2 that are mounted side by side.

Check the hub temps when you stop to see if they are overheating. This can tell you if you have too much drag on the tires, brakes, etc.

Magard

Does the truck drive straight or does it pull hard one way or the other. If tandems are mis aligned they will fight the front end trying to go find a happy place. Tires wearing like that should be like driving a battle wagon if it's a alignment problem. Brakes would be on fire wearing a tire off that fast. Check suspension for sure also as Waterloo is saying. Don't know how many miles or abuse but look under the axle wear the spindle welds too the housing make sure no cracks. There should be oil weeping if it's cracked. I have seen that on high mileage abused quarry trucks. These roads today who knows.

Crafter

2011 int prostar with 500k.

But, I have to say, I bought Japanese tires this time, but last time before all this mess, I had 180$ Chinese tires that lasted me 180k, I kid you not, I had those bad boys for 2 years.

I have a feeling Rawze got it right, The issue is the guy only adjusted the bearings on one side. Not both. I'll have it checked out asap.

Thank you everyone!

Nilao

My 2010 prostar has crush sleeves in between the bearings. They are a torque and set type system. I would call a dealer and ask the parts guy if yours have crush sleeves as well. He should also be able to tell you the torque value as well but I can tell you it's over 300 ft/lb. I had a friend that had to have his front axle bent due to a bow in the axle itself. He chased inside tire wear for months putting new drives on every 6 months. Alignment shops he was using never found an issue. He finally found a shop that does things old school and they found the axle was bowed. Got it straightened and now the tires wear like iron. I have the crush sleeves in mine and my caps have been on my truck for over 190k miles and have 10-12 thousands of meat left on them.

Rawze

My last set of M710 drive tires lasted me 457,000 miles and still had roughly 5/32 tread on them when I changed them. I changed them because they were slipping in the snow and ice more than i liked.

R283 Steers last me about 140-180k miles. It is that Hendrickson air suspension front-end that takes its toll on steers and gets them with all its rubber joints and bushings. I think they would last longer if it were not for that.