Inner wear on the front tires

The Chevy Chassis is not known for alignment problems as the E350 Fords are,but is not unheard of. The previous owner may have abused it badly.

I just had my 2006 Chevy Based Class C in for alignment check at a well known alignment shop here, it is family owned for more than 40 years and specializes in trucks,Motorhomes large and small. I have taken all my large vehicles plus all my RVs there.

The owner asked what the problem was and I told him that it had over 96000 miles on it and it was a Previous Rental, and in the 28 page service record that I got there was no mention of an alignment or front end work. The only problem was the steering wheel was not level,off just a bit, otherwise it drove fine and there was no other problems.

We also talked about the Fords and the adjustments that Harvard has talked a lot about,and he agreed on his recommendations and that the E350 has the most problems but the Chevy does not, most of his RV alignment business comes from the Ford based E350 with less problems with the E450.

The Tech that did the work said that all the components were in fine shape and very little wear and a small adjustment to the steering and it was ready to go.

I would have a good alignment shop that is versed in truck chassis to see if the front end was damaged.

Also as j-d had mentioned you should check the the Tech Service Bulletin #07103 It has to do with the Steering Idler Arm Bracket and your RV is in the year range and may be listed. This would be something that a Chevy Truck shop would know about, I would give them a call and have it inspected.

^^^^ Absolutely!!! The Chevy has two bushings per Control Arm times four arms. That's eight bushings. That plus four Ball Joints. Ford has one Axle Bushing and one Radius Arm Bushing per side, for four bushings total. Plus four Ball Joints. I think that Chevy uses an Idler Arm which introduces more chances for wear than Ford since Ford has no Idler.
I've done a lot of front end rebuilds and what I noticed was that shops tended to focus on Ball Joints and ignore Bushings.
I also found that new BUSHINGS really helped bring back that New Car Feeling. So if you get into bushing work, you may be able to find improvements over OEM. OEM is Rubber and there are probably Poly aftermarket replacements. They tighten up the handling. They might transfer more road feel and noise to the cabin, but I don't think you'd notice it in a loaded Class C.

Have had both the Chevy and Ford cutaway vehicles with cargo and ambulance bodies on them. The first thing all of them need after the body is installed and you load them up ready to go, is to have a front end alignment done. The front end settings will change when the load is placed on the rear frame rails. On the Fords after the adjustable alignment sleeves were installed, they seemed to hold it longer than the Chevys. The Chevys had more bushings and linkage ends to wear and get sloppy. On the vehicles that were changing the load all day long they would use more front tires than the units that stayed loaded all day.

ericsmith32 wrote:
Guess the Chevy platform isn't infallible after all.

Just step to the fridge, pour another Kool-Aid, and it's infallible again, real soon...

Couldn't resist, but if it's wearing tires, something needs looking at. You can check toe-in with nothing but two hat pins and a tape measure. You can check Camber with a decent degree marked level like this one And you can check Caster with a formula Harvard has.

Also check for a cracked attachment problem. I think it's on the passenger side, maybe an idler arm mounting. The Chevy Tribe can help with that.

It's a good chassis, you'll be able to get it right. Could be a good time to get to a CAT scale and find out your front and rear axle weights.

ericsmith32 wrote:
Guess the Chevy platform isn't infallible after all. Have put almost 8k after buying in 2013, 6k this year alone. Definite wear on both inner sides on the front. At this rate it'll be the same as my grandparents E450. I find this overall very strange. We keep the water tank mostly full, black tank at least 1/2 and the gas tank full. If anything being the 3500 chassis would be the outer edge. Makes me wonder what the PO had on this thing to warrant such alignment.. must of been heavy!
Slop isn't near as bad as the E450 but there's 30k difference.

Tearing the front end apart when it gets warmed up as I think there's other issue's on the passenger side. When it comes down to it all boils down to alignment no matter what you have!

Reads as though the unit has an alignment problem. Should be able to fix for under $100.

It is doubtful that the front axle is overloaded.

If your grand parents E450 has front end slop then you/they should investigate getting more front end +caster.