Odd steer tire wear, wobble in the front end over 50mph?

Discussion in 'Heavy Duty Diesel Truck Mechanics Forum' started by Gumper, Feb 8, 2019.

  1. Hulld

    Hulld Road Train Member

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    E4801190-DCDA-4383-8F7F-37EA538B1E5D.jpeg I know what the alignment company said but here’s a good illustration of your problem.
    Notice where the wear points are on the front tires.
     
    Gumper Thanks this.
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  3. Ruthless

    Ruthless Road Train Member

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    ....put grease on your fifth wheel more often, just a thought.
     
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  4. Gumper

    Gumper Road Train Member

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    How often should I be doing that? I generally do it every time I grease the classis every other week.
     
  5. Ruthless

    Ruthless Road Train Member

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    Try every week n see if it changes the wear pattern.

    .....a lot of folks throw a lot of parts and tests at tire wear: and a lot of times that may be what it takes. Sometimes the psi is off a bunch in one or more tire. and sometimes there’s not enough slickness on the turntable that is the fifth wheel plate. Trailer is running dry on it, and it binds up a c hair shy of straight running down the road. Pushes your steers just a little causing weird edge wear.

    Just a thought. Ain’t gonna hurt nothing to try it.
     
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  6. Working2party

    Working2party Medium Load Member

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    On your old tires, Other than the edges where it was the worse, was it even wear? Measured in the center and opposite of the wear. Was it even? Or was h
    GREASE IS CHEAP-compared to almost every part on the market!!
     
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  7. Gumper

    Gumper Road Train Member

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    I wouldn’t call it even wear. It wasn’t wearing much at all on the opposite side of the tire.
     
  8. BoxCarKidd

    BoxCarKidd Road Train Member

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    That looks like alignment wear to me. Does out of balance cause steer tires to wear on opposite sides of each other? I thank not just accelerates wear from another problem.
    Could not read your alignment print out but many folks only know how to do what the machine says.
    A: A vehicle will pull to the side with the most positive camber.
    B: A vehicle will pull to the side with least positive caster.
    C: The rear axles determine which direction the vehicle will travel like a rudder. Also referred to as the thrust angle.
    A,B and C can be within specifications and cause pull when two or more of them work together in the same direction. Then the steering wheels must correct the situation for the vehicle to go straight down the road. Often resulting in an off center steering wheel.
    While beating my head against the wall Snowey pointed out that even semi trucks can be victim to radial tire pull. Rotated the tires and it pulled the other way. Thanks Snowey.
    Hope your truck no longer pulls. If it does you way wish to look into it further before you loose another set of tires.
     
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  9. Gumper

    Gumper Road Train Member

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    If it doesn’t fix the problem I don’t know what else to do. I’m not going to keep going to alignment shops for them to tell me it’s fine. We’ll see in a few months what they look like.
     
  10. Expeditor

    Expeditor Medium Load Member

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    Unfortunately you are at their mercy. Once the alignment is done you cant see if it will work or not until it is too late, unless it pulls excessively to one side or another. The only way to know is if it starts messing up the tires. Then if you catch it on time you might be able to shave the tire, if not, then its too late for the tire, once they start wearing funny its game over. I do believe in the MD Alignment, had one done 2 years ago and still going strong. I like that they look at the tire and not so much the machine. The machine can say its spot on but if the tire is we wearing funny, or uneven, then the tire is telling you the truth, there is something wrong.
     
  11. Trucker2211

    Trucker2211 Light Load Member

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    If you’re alignment is within spec, and you changed shocks very recently... put a set of balancers on there especially since you just got 2 new steer tires mounted. It’ll fix it I’m telling ya. My steers looked EXACTLY like yours, wore in the same exact places, and just on one half of the tire. Put balancers on and installed new shocks, plus mine was out of alignment... and now I have 150k miles so far on these steers and they are just as even as day one. Still close to 50% tread left too. Absolutely ZERO steering wheel shake to boot.
     
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