Brutal outside edge front tire wear

[brettf]

Hi.. hoping for some input here..

'95 C2500, stock height as I tow/haul weight with it frequently, new bilsteins in the last 18 months or so. When I first got the truck a few years back the outside edge of the pass front tire wore much quicker than the rest, knew it needed shocks and the tires were old, so I put new bilsteins all around and a new set of Kumho LT245/75R16 on the factory steelies.. I generally run rears at 80 and fronts at 60 as I load the truck up heavy with my camper or building supplies..

This is my first domestic truck, so since I didnt know the front end well, passed it to a 30+yr mechanic buddy who checked over the front end and ran it on his shops fancy alignment rack and all looked a-ok..

.. but was looking over the truck the other day and noticed that my outside edges on both front tires are going away waaayyy faster than middle/inside and Ive put.. maybe 7-10000 KM on them..

is this just normal for these trucks and I need to be rotating tires like crazy or .. ?

thanks..

 

[Supercharged111]

The ****** up thing is that positive camber is still within spec on these trucks. Do you have an alignment sheet showing what you actually have instead of being told it's good? You need some negative camber to prevent what you're talking about. My 1500 has barely any caster, so the camber gets no assistance in that department.

 

[Coveman]

even wear or cupping? idler arms wear out on our trucks and lead to abbie normal tire wear too

 

[Supercharged111]

I dunno, my pitman arm is hammered and tire wear seems normal. Seems like OP's wear is happening fairly quickly.

 

[moremudd]

A good alignment guy can see a tire wear problem and make adjustments to help , now a days most front end guys just throw it on the rack and make sure its in specs and let it go and if you try and talk to them about more precise caster / camber adjustment their eyes just glaze over or they get short with you because they are missing some important texts while they are talking to you . On another note , sometimes its helpful to get it aligned with the truck loaded the way it is normally used . The shop I worked at many yrs ago had the most talented front end guy I have ever seen and he thought out side the box , like decreasing the caster out of spec on the 70's Monte Carlo's to reduce front tire edge wear .

 

[89RCLB]

We used to have our overweight customers sit in the car while we aligned it, definitely made for some embarrassing moments!

 

[Supercharged111]

A good alignment guy can see a tire wear problem and make adjustments to help , now a days most front end guys just throw it on the rack and make sure its in specs and let it go and if you try and talk to them about more precise caster / camber adjustment their eyes just glaze over or they get short with you because they are missing some important texts while they are talking to you . On another note , sometimes its helpful to get it aligned with the truck loaded the way it is normally used . The shop I worked at many yrs ago had the most talented front end guy I have ever seen and he thought out side the box , like decreasing the caster out of spec on the 70's Monte Carlo's to reduce front tire edge wear .

I assume he did this to obtain more camber.

 

[moremudd]

I can not remember if camber was altered as well , I can only remember the caster modification and how pleased the customers were that the tires quite wearing so quickly on the edges , that was 30 yrs ago , its all I can do to remember anything from those days LOL . If I remember correctly the Monte's had the extra caster for high speed stability , I remember that when you would turn the steering wheel all you had to do was let go of the wheel and it would turn the wheel straight again immediately , but even after removing some of the caster it still wanted to go in a straight line .

 

[Supercharged111]

More caster adds camber when the wheel is turned. This helps with tire wear, but only if you can have enough camber to begin with. Because you have to Rob Peter to pay Paul, I suspect he reduced caster (dynamic camber) in favor of static camber.

 

[moremudd]

It looks like you are in a better position than I am for figuring out if the front end guy was also adjusting camber , I just remember the first few times he made such drastic changes he was laughing and joking with the owners of the cars about how much of a change he could make without causing a negative impact on how well the car was to drive . On another note , just as recent as last year I had a front end mechanic at Firestone tell me that I would need to pull the steering wheel off of my 1998 k1500 if I wanted it to be straight , my jaw about hit the floor , I requested a private meeting with him and the manager and explained how to adjust the tie rod sleeves to straighten out the steering wheel and how to count the revolutions from right to left to make sure the adjustment wouldn't be uneven . I wish I could have recorded the responses I got and how difficult it was to get the idea across to these two guys , but in the end they did a great job on my truck . I guess Firestone doesn't require their mechanics to go through any type of formal training ? Can you imagine how many customers are driving around with crooked steering wheels LOL . Maybe the requirements to be a mechanic in Texas don't include certifications ?
The mechanic I worked with years ago , his name was Gary Lyda , I'm sure I spelled it wrong , but he was the best mechanic I have ever met , any time a problem came up he could find a solution , he also had very high standards , it was a pleasure learning from him .