Heading off to Montreal on Friday so brought the trailer home today to adjust brakes and noticed some strange tire wear where the inside of the tires are wearing and some tread cupping. In 12 years of having this trailer never seen that before. Also found that a couple of the wheels have a lot of play in the bearings. Done my own bearings for years and never had that either. Been about 1 1/2 years and about 6000 miles so now I have to do bearings tomorrow. Hope I don't find any issues and can just clean them, pack them and be done in an afternoon. Hope that is all that it is with the tire wear too.Anything else I should look at while I am there. Plan to clean and lubricate the brakes too.Thanks,Rob

Yes a loose or bad bearing could cause inside tire wear. If you have to replace the bearings make sure that they are high quality bearing from the USA.

corvettekent wrote:Yes a loose or bad bearing could cause inside tire wear. If you have to replace the bearings make sure that they are high quality bearing from the USA.100% agree.Consider that now you have the tire wear you may create a condition such that the wear will be amplified somewhat with the new bearings, consider rotating the tires, changing direction and balancing never hurt.

Thanks for the feedback corvettekent and MudChucker. That is what I thought as well. Hopefully when all is repacked I won't have this issue again. Can't figure out how the bearings got loose. Torqued the castle nut and backed off 1 notch so should have been fine. Guess I will see tomorrow when I pull them apart if the bearings are still fine or if something else happened.

While your wheels are up in the air I'd give them a few revolutions to make sure you don't have the start of a ply separation. On our old Montana I had weird tire wear happening on the street-side, turned out to be a ply sep. The front tire was way worse than the rear, put on the spare. Luckily I made it back home without incident and bought new tires!A tip my dad gave me years ago when doing bearings was to tighten the castle nut, spin the wheel a few times and try and tighten some more. That would insure the bearings are seated properly and then back off the nut a tad.Dan

Thanks Dan. I will look at the tires as well. I also tighten the castle nut, spin tighten, spin, tighten then back off one notch and put in the cotter pin.

Inside tire wear & bearing play in wheels Related or not?

14 Replies

dapperdan
Explorer
Aug 19, 2018
While your wheels are up in the air I'd give them a few revolutions to make sure you don't have the start of a ply separation. On our old Montana I had weird tire wear happening on the street-side, turned out to be a ply sep. The front tire was way worse than the rear, put on the spare. Luckily I made it back home without incident and bought new tires!

A tip my dad gave me years ago when doing bearings was to tighten the castle nut, spin the wheel a few times and try and tighten some more. That would insure the bearings are seated properly and then back off the nut a tad.

Dan
CaLBaR
Explorer
Aug 19, 2018
Thanks for the feedback corvettekent and MudChucker. That is what I thought as well. Hopefully when all is repacked I won't have this issue again.

Can't figure out how the bearings got loose. Torqued the castle nut and backed off 1 notch so should have been fine. Guess I will see tomorrow when I pull them apart if the bearings are still fine or if something else happened.
MudChucker
Explorer
Aug 19, 2018
corvettekent wrote:
Yes a loose or bad bearing could cause inside tire wear. If you have to replace the bearings make sure that they are high quality bearing from the USA.

100% agree.

Consider that now you have the tire wear you may create a condition such that the wear will be amplified somewhat with the new bearings, consider rotating the tires, changing direction and balancing never hurt.
corvettekent
Explorer
Aug 19, 2018
Yes a loose or bad bearing could cause inside tire wear. If you have to replace the bearings make sure that they are high quality bearing from the USA.

Forum Discussion

Inside tire wear & bearing play in wheels Related or not?

14 Replies

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