Weird tire wear.....

[ShadowsPapa]

I've done more alignments than I care to remember, but this is different wear than what I'm used to.
I've noticed that my tires are getting more noisy than expected. The General A/Tx tires are supposed to be fairly quiet for A/T tires, and actually weren't bad for a long time. But I decided that maybe it wasn't my imagination and decided to more carefully look at tire wear. Tires have been rotated pretty frequently - with each oil change and that's normally 5 to 7K miles.

The tires look fine and seem to be wearing evenly until you look very closely and run your hand over the tread.
To check for excessive toe (in or out) you run your hand from the outside of the tire across the face toward the center of the vehicle, then run your hand starting on the inner most treads and pull outward. If it's feathered feeling, your toe is off, too extreme in or out, depending on the feathering.
I have none of that. running my hand across the tire's tread outer treat to inner, it's smooth, inner to outer, it's smooth. No sawtooth or feathering. OK, that's cool.

Cupping? That's not uncommon, but no, no cupping here.

OK, how about running hand around the tire's circumference. Around the tire.
Middle of the tire, fine, going forward over the top of the tire, going backward over the top of the tire, feels even. No scalloping or feathering. Nice and even and smooth............... with one exception...........
The outermost tread.
Running my hand over the top of the left tire from back to front, on the outermost tread only, not bad. But pulling my hand over the tire front to rear of tire, it was sawtooth. It snagged me pulling back.
Hmmm, walk over to the right tire - same thing. Looks and feels fine except for the outermost tread, and it's sort of a feathered or sawtooth pattern in the same direction - smooth going forward, catches going back over top of tire.
With the frequent rotations, I decided to see if the rear tires were similar.
Yes, to a much lesser extent, but that outer tread did have a mild feather or sawtooth pattern.
Back to the front tires -
I noticed it a very little bit on the innermost tread, but not a lot.

I thought ok, it's been a while since I was in the business, what have I forgotten???
"taking corners too fast is the usual cause" in one of my college books, even internet sites suggest that as a cause. Uh, no, it's not a race truck and tires are expensive.
The only other things my old books say is excessive caster (lol, I don't think so) or excessive toe. Really? But no feathering from inside to out or outside to inside? Hmmmm
Well, these A/T truck tires aren't care tires. Is it possible these tires with the A/T tread design will wear differently with excessive toe and only wear the outer treads, in a pattern around the tire and not across??

I've got to sleep on this a bit, still digging in my books from my school days, but this is a different animal. I have to admit - I'm semi-stumped.

Again - only the outermost treads on each tire (other than a minor bit of the same wear pattern on the inner tread) - the middles are wearing fine.

Inflation? I'm actually running these higher than recommended because I haven't dropped pressure down since our temperatures have come out of the toilet. Recommended was about 36 cold psi. I'm running about 38 cold psi.
Chalk test was very good at 35.

Where are our tire dealers!

I found the thing the local dealer gave me showing the alignment settings - I have to admit, looking closely, the toe is almost right at max toe-in.

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[Rusty PW]

When you rotate your tires. Don't criss-cross them. Do a square rotation. LF to RF. RF to RR. RR to LR. LR to LF. Do this a couple of times when you rotate next. Each tire has to be in each position at least once. So that is 4 rotations. When I work for Goodyear back in the early 80's. That's something we did at times.

 

[XJFanatic]

All of my Jeeps have always worn the same way. If you figure it out please let us know.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

When you rotate your tires. Don't criss-cross them. Do a square rotation. LF to RF. RF to RR. RR to LR. LR to LF. Do this a couple of times when you rotate next. Each tire has to be in each position at least once. So that is 4 rotations. When I work for Goodyear back in the early 80's. That's something we did at times.

With the 5 tire rotation, each tire does end up on each corner, and takes its turn as the spare. RF becomes LR, for example, reversing rotation. It's a specific pattern that ensures after about 5 rotations, every tire has been in every position and has been spinning both directions.

This isn't a problem with rotation, it's wear. I do rotations more frequently than recommended.
There's something causing it, likely toe from what I get out of the old books (and a couple tire sites)
This wear has happened since the last rotation for the most part.

 

[j.o.y.ride]

When you rotate your tires. Don't criss-cross them. Do a square rotation. LF to RF. RF to RR. RR to LR. LR to LF. Do this a couple of times when you rotate next. Each tire has to be in each position at least once. So that is 4 rotations. When I work for Goodyear back in the early 80's. That's something we did at times.

But criss-crossing 4 times also leads to 4 different positions. If fronts go diagonal and rears come straight. Is there a different reason to square?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Tirerack and others recommend this.

But this is a wear thing, not a lack of rotation. I rotate frequently enough that they've already been most of the way around.
Rotating doesn't solve it, just moves it. The next tires to hit the front end will do the same thing.

 

[Rocksalt]

same issue with mine.. rotated every 5-6k 34 psi cold. slight wear on outer edge. no issues with hwy handling, haven't had the toe specs checked. I didn't have this issue with my JK.

 

[j.o.y.ride]

only thing I can think of is the side of the tread with the grooves has more room to flex and squishes on contact with the ground, whereas the solid block has nowhere to go and wears differently. tires with extra gap in one section of large block would seem more prone to this. the front toe may be exaggerating this phenomena.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

same issue with mine.. rotated every 5-6k 34 psi cold. slight wear on outer edge. no issues with hwy handling, haven't had the toe specs checked. I didn't have this issue with my JK.

Very interesting.
Similar rotation timing, it's fine on the highway (could use more caster perhaps, but it's not bad either)

I think I'll try to check the toe on mine tomorrow. That's really the only thing I can figure in this.

 

[Rvalas]

Mine started to wear like this recently which spurred the most recent rotation, I have not experienced this wear pattern before, also after I rotated they were extremely loud for a week or two.

 

[brianinca]

My suspension folks dialed in max toe on my JTR (read again) because of the crummy steering box, when I took it in for alignment after adding the Mopar lift LCA's. I run ~32 PSI when not towing, which is most of the time. I don't see wear like that on my KO2's, but also:

"I thought ok, it's been a while since I was in the business, what have I forgotten???
"taking corners too fast is the usual cause" in one of my college books, even internet sites suggest that as a cause. Uh, no, it's not a race truck and tires are expensive. "

Yeah, that's me, I'm this close to new tires for my Jeep, at 28,xxx miles. I consider tires a wear item and a challenge. I just today bought tires for my wife's Honda SUV, 9:15 appt, so it will be next month to re-shoe the Jeep. 2 years and 30K is good wear by my standards!

 

[LostWoods]

This was always a common problem with SFA trucks and Jeeps, especially those which were lifted. The static tire angle relative to the road surface commonly scrubs the front of the outer shoulder tread with weight transfer in corners.

Our usual solution was a little more air pressure to get weight off the shoulder blocks and religious 5-tire or 4-tire rear cross rotations. Didn't always work though (Falken and Toyo in those days were terrible about this) and sometimes it just became something the owner had to deal with.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Mine started to wear like this recently which spurred the most recent rotation, I have not experienced this wear pattern before, also after I rotated they were extremely loud for a week or two.

Wear like on mine - that saw tooth or feathered, sharp edge to the front, outer tread line only?
Weird............. hmmmmm
Yes, loud is one of the reasons I decided to look. No A/T is whisper quiet like the stock H/T tires are, but these were relatively quiet when newer and that brand has good reviews for lack of noise for an A/T tire.
OK, so you are another who has seen this. Good to know - NOT good for you! I'm not glad, just adds another "data point" for my thinking.

My suspension folks dialed in max toe on my JTR (read again) because of the crummy steering box, when I took it in for alignment after adding the Mopar lift LCA's. I run ~32 PSI when not towing, which is most of the time. I don't see wear like that on my KO2's,

These are not large tires, I'm sure not as big as what you or most others here run, so most will be running lower pressure than me. These are 32.2" diameter, 11" wide, compared to 10.2" width for stock tires.
I'm going to drop the pressure back to where they told me it should be (I think we are finally done with the 20 degree BS)

Do you know what your toe settings were?
Maybe that's a good thing to compare - see what others are running for toe-in.

This was always a common problem with SFA trucks and Jeeps, especially those which were lifted. The static tire angle relative to the road surface commonly scrubs the front of the outer shoulder tread with weight transfer in corners.

Scrub radius, that sort of thing, is always a player when mods are made. I'm running stock wheels, the tires are stock diameter, the scrub radius is thus going to be stock/factory.
It's sitting 1" higher than stock - best I can tell because it's really hard to get measurements from STOCK Overlands.
The axle remains pretty much centered due to lack of any real lift.
I get where you are coming from - and if this was modified in any real way........ (you are one of few who even think of that sort of thing changing with wheel and tire and lift changes)

 

[Rocksalt]

mine might be scrub radius as the Black Rhino wheels I had installed last year have been the only chsnge. Tires are 285 17 17 and they wore evenly when I had them on the oem rims... haven't had my toe checked but it handles great.. 1 finger on steering wheel at 75 mph. No tracking or pulling issues.

 

[Charles 236]

I would look at getting the toe in as close to the preferred settings as possible. I find that many of the younger techs try to set toe on the individual sides on solid axle vehicles. I learned years ago when I align a solid axle vehicle to go to the screen that gives me total toe. I set it to the preferred setting, then I deal with the steer ahead. This has always worked well for me. Also, I always cross the front tires to the rear on rotations, moving the rear tires straight forward to the front. I try to stay ahead of wear patterns, since tires never true themselves up very well.

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