Stinger Steer drive tires,

We run 22.5 Michelins on the steers and 19.5 drives. There's an issue with them blowing steers out over a combination of weight and speed. JCT has been changing out there steers to BFGs.

Drives have been good for the most part. They have been changing the inside trailer tires to what looks like a drive tire. We keep having issues with irregular wear and even with the air monitoring systems it's still going on. Everyone thought it was bearing or hubs but even after there replaced the tires still wear at a angled, bump looking pattern.

 

For drives, we do run 255/70R22.5's. We've tested several over a few years, Michelin XD2, Continental HDR and Yokohama TY303's. The Yoks did the best of those 3 and that's what we've switched to. Michelin's we close on miles, but lower than the Yoks and more expensive. Yoks consistently went 130-140K miles, Michelin's were consistently 5-10K less. The Continental's were around 120K miles, and they had to be rotated often let to right. They would start to feather in one direction to the point that the driver would complain of a vibration, we had to flip the direction every 30K miles to avoid it.

Our test rats on drives were 5 2007 Pete 379's and 5 2012-2014 Pete 388's.

On the steers we run 2 sizes. Older trucks have 275/70R22.5's and all the newer have 295/60R22.5 (on a 9" wide wheel). For cost per mile, nothing beat the Michelin (XZE2+ for the 275's and XZA's for the 295's). We had to switch to Continentals on the 295's because of the speed recall that was turning trucks down to 65 MPH. The 295 Michelin's were only rated to 65 MPH. Rather than risk a lawsuit if something happened, we switch to Continental's that are rated to 75 MPH.

 

We get the same thing on inside trailer tires, mostly cupping wear on the insides of the front axle. We do run out old drives on the them to get a little more out of them, maybe that's what they're doing too. Personally, I don't think it's really a problem with the trailer. We pick up in tight dealerships and tight turns on pavement scuffs tires, that's rely unavoidable at most of our pickup locations.

We also found that the newer Cottrells upped the pressure on the safety valve, the air suspension wont go up until 75-80 PSI. So when we first got them, we had some guys dragging tires if it dropped over the weekend if they didn't wait for the suspension to lift. I think, but I'm not positive, that they did that when over-lift and suspension dump were installed. To have both, to drop the suspension, it has to drain the tanks. It holds 75-80 PSI in the tanks rather than dropping it down to 60 PSI like the older valves did.

 

Ditto on the Yokohama tires. I haven't finished wearing mine out yet but the wear pattern is smooth. I will certainly buy another set once these wear out. The Michelins wear out way too fast for me. I use to run the Bridgestone and got the most miles from them for my money. You REALLY have to keep them cross rotated though to get the best wear out of them, One last note, if you are into "rolling resistance" the Yokohama tires beat out the others mentioned.

 

We've had good luck with 225/70R22.5 Yok RY023 trailers and if we pull drives a little early in the winter we'll run the TY303's out on trailers. We also had good luck with the Continental Hybrids on trailers, depends on which is cheaper when we buy tires.

On the steers, do some checking on the 275/80 running with 255/70 drives. We tried that on 1 truck and it kept given odd faults for high resolution wheel speed. The ABS seemed to be happy with it, but not the Namux system on the Pete. It was a while ago, so I'm not sure exactly which ECU had the issue. I know with a Cascadia you have a cab SAM and a chassis SAM, which is Freightliners equivalent to the Pete's CECU3 and Chassis node. Anyway, were were told that it could only tolerate a 10% difference tire size. What they couldn't tell us is what that 10% was, diameter, circumference, rotations per mile, or what? We ended up with the 275/70's, which solved that issue.

I'm sure you can make it work, but it might require programming the rotations per mile in an ECU or two.

 

The only thing with running out drives half way and saving for the trailer is you will end up with a pile of drive tires. You should get 300k out of trailer tires without much issue. I personally run Bridgestone R250 on the trailer. They have a more solid rib than the others aside from the "eco hybrid" tires that have normally one less rib and none of the small sipe lines in the ribs.
I've never heard of the problem Grape had. I have 295/75/22.5 on the steers and 255/70/22.5 on the drives. I stay away from the smaller steer tires as they are know more for blowing out.
A owner I know also has 3 new Petes and has the 275/80/22.5 on the steers due to the warranty issue. If weight were to become a issue on the steers they make the 275/80 295/75 in a 16 ply which are good for 7160 lbs a tire.

 

That's the steers we run. We're almost always pushing 14,000 on the steer axle.

 

So Yokohama is the way to go for steers as well?