Tcourt7 wrote:
Had extreme tire wear last years trip, had new shackles installed, had things checked, bought new tires. Have bad tire wear now on one tire only, outside of front right tire, and some on outside of rear left Told by manufacturer to have alignment checked and check for bent axle.
Took it to a seemingly good rv shop in South Orange County. Alignment checked, told ok, within 1/4" on all. Shop says i need to buy new axles at cost of $1,500. Told axles are preflexed, bow up, supposed to flatten out when loaded, but trailer not heavy enough for the factory axles to flatten out so tire does not ride flat, toed in. Fix is to install a straight axle.
Talked to northwoods, they don't agree, but no help. No one seems to explain why outside wear on front right but not front left, and why left rear but not right rear.
I feel you need to find a different shop. Since you did not describe what and how the 1/4" is measured at I do not want to speculate how screwed up they are. Depending were that 1/4" is, it can burn tires and fast.
Now the axle deal, if they declare the axle needs to be flat, move on to another shop as they are not familiar with the axle systems in a TT. Actually if you have a straight axle, flat, that is zero camber and it means you are at the max load limit and possibly then some and into overload. If you start with a straight axle no load and apply load, it is going to flex down in the center and be negative camber. Not good.
The front tire wear you are describing sounds like it might be toe at the wheel is off and it can come from a few places. The thrust angle to the front of the camper is off from a spring hanger in the wrong place, a bent axle stub or the axle was just plain made wrong. You did not say if you had this camper since new. Since it is a Nash, I will give Northwood the benefit of the doubt and say your hangers are welded on correct. They are a quality mfg and they make their own frames. And yes, I agree with them the axle is not to be flat.
You need to find a truck/trailer alignment service center. I'm not saying an RV dealer cannot do this, however the ones equipped to do it right are few. Need to know what the actual problem is before the fix.
If you want to read up on some this, see here. I was burning tires too. In my case the axles where actually made wrong (excessive toe out on all 4 wheels) and the hangers welded on wrong on top of it. The hangers being welded on wrong actually put one wheel in alignment and magnified the other side. I corrected the mess myself in my own yard and it exceeds Dexter spec for proper alignment. This is not something you can do on the road, but there some checks you can do to see where the problem is if the wear it that bad.
TT axle alignment & install - Detailed (long lot's of pics)Since you have new tires that have worn this pattern, if you have a dial caliper or a thread depth gage and measure all 4 tires across the face and lay them on wear map, you can see which tires are perfect, a little out and a lot out. And seeing that pattern will tell you a lot if you know what to look for. New good tires wear to the way the wheel is in or out of align. You may not be able to see it unless you know what you are looking for and or measure the thread depth across the face of the tire.
When all 4 wheels are in align, correctly, the wear is close to perfect on all 4 tires at the same time. Other than tandem axle turn scrub wear and since I went LT tires, even that is not like it was the little I had on ST's.
This is the ideal kind of place you can find. These guys are too far away but I found them when I was trying to get info on my setup. And they were too far away from me too.
http://www.precisionframe.com/index.phpHope this helps and good luck
John
PS, You should be running the tires at max cold side wall pressure on the TT. Are you? It is also advisable to get individual wheel weights to make sure you are not overloading one wheel. If they are going to bend to align the axles, you really do not want to have this done in an overloaded state. While that wheel will be in align then, soon tire failure will come, you unload weight and then the ax1e is out of alignment. Find a truck stop with a CAT scale. Generally cost under $10. Well at least hear on the east coast, do not know about CA
