What causes wear on both shoulders of the tires that isn't pressure or alignment related?
Got wear on both shoulders of both steer tires, have done wheel alignments and kept psi at 120 on multiple sets of tires.
Was getting solid 100 - 140 thousand miles per set with tread left before putting them on a trailer, but now it's slowly got worse with each set and gone down to about 50 thousand miles before getting bad shoulder wear, but with lots of tread left.
I think it must be in the steering box/linkage or something, everytime I check psi I am at 120 and the last few alignments have been done but nothing majorly out of whack and everything was aligned when a new set of tires put on.
Truck has 1.1million miles with little done to the steering components. The steering does feel sloppy compared to when I hop in another truck, but I am pretty used to mine, so don't notice it I reckon.
Truck is a Freightliner with dd15
Any ideas? Thanks
Tire wear question
Discussion in 'Ask An Owner Operator' started by MTMAUS, Jan 16, 2026.
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Forgot to mention, Kingpins and tie rod ends checked, no movement in the hub/wheel etc when checked with both a bar and by the alignment guys
Rideandrepair Thanks this. -
Pic’s might help.
You can look through this and see if you can find the problem.
https://www.tireimages.com/documents/tire-condition-manual.pdf -
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Thanks, it's pretty much exact the same as page 112 , but on both inside and outside of the tires. Your document says to do nothing lol, maybe it's not as bad as I thought.
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Typically, wear on both edges but not the center, would indicate underinflation. I never ran that much pressure in a steer, maybe 100 tops for 14 ply, I read 16 ply can go 120. I can say without reservation, over the years, I've ran just about every steer tire made, and no 2 wore alike. I never got 100K out of a steer tire, but always had jobs with a lot of turning, I'd try a different pressure gauge, no 2 of those were ever the same either. I think it's just the crap tires of today.
07shaker Thanks this. -
What brand tires? I would probably try a different alignment shop,
I run 130 psi in mine -
How are the bushings on your rear suspension?
Big Road Skateboard Thanks this. -
Steering box, drag link, and shaft will affect drivability, but won't cause wear like you're describing, and has no effect on alignment.
What area are you running, and what tires? What style of tire?
A pic would help. -
On straight axles guarantee tires just wear like that. Manufacturers have tried to combat that with decoupler grooves on the tread edges. They help in many cases but not a guarantee. The first radial truck tires were the Michelin XZA without the decoupler groove. Them things would get nasty wear. Goodyear saw this in the early 80’s and came out with the G259 with the groove. It did much better. Michelin soon came out with the XZA2 with the groove and took the lead. Turning radius also plays a hugepart in that shoulder wear. Axle kingpin angles on Older trucks kept the tires more upright on the tread patch during turns. The newer angles for quicker tighter turns lay the tires down lower on the sidewalls and pinch and scrubb the edges of the tread badly. The tighter the turns the faster the wear on steers.
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