Front tire wear after 27,000 miles

[NorseNW]

First time truck camper owner. Arctic Fox 1150 on a 2015 Chevy DRW. Handles and travels great. Has about 27,000 miles on the truck. 3/4 of that is probably with the camper on. Half of that towing a boat behind the camper as well.

I was loading it up the other day for a trip and noticed the front tires have a significant amount of wear on the outside of the treads on both tires. Just curious if this is normal or if I need to be looking into some issue.

Thanks for input / experience in the matter

[Grit_dog]

cpu266 wrote:
I have a Ram 3500 dually with cummins that was wearing the outside of the front tires. Two sets of front tires in 58,000 miles. Alignment was checked several times, it was on spec. This last time we took all the toe adjustment out. So instead of the front tires being set with the toe in it is now "0" no toe. Drives fine and no outer wear yet with 3,000 on new front tires. I check weekly with a tread depth gauge.

Be careful with 0 toe. Aside from it making the tracking a bit loose, it isn't the end of the world on tight newer components. 0 toe is not good once there's some wear or play in the front end.
I've read (on the interwebs) that Ram actually sets the trucks with a bit too much toe in, but I'd still want to be 1/16" - 1/8" overall.

[Grit_dog]

Yes one could flip tires on the rims. Remount them inside out to scrub off the other edge of the tire. If this can be done on the cheap, it's remount cost vs new tires sooner.
Regarding alignment, pickups, HD pickups in particular, hold alignment quite well. Truck components, suspension is designed to take a lot of abuse.
If you have a perfectly straight driving truck, unless one day it's pulling to the side or the steering wheel suddenly isn't centered up when going straight, or steering/suspension has been modified or disassembled or you know you whacked something hard, it likely doesn't need an alignment.
This is how a lot of front end repairs get sold. Guy gets new tires cause old ones were wore out. Shop reccomends an alignment. $100or less right? Good money spent to protect that big new tire investment. Shop says ______is out of spec, couldn't align due to that, BUT, for $________ we can do tie rod, bjs, track bar bushings, whatever. Now a guy just spent $1000 to protect $500 worth of tires when he didn't have a problem to begin with.
Then guy gets on Internet and says his (pick your brand) front end is garbage. Only _____ miles and all this stuff needed to be replaced just to align it.

Note this is not always the case for sure but it happens every day in a tire shop near YOU!
Don't be a sucker for this. Just on the 07 in my sig alone, it's been in a tire shop probably 10 times. New tires, switching summer to winter treads, flipping tires inside out when the outside edge gets scrubbed off from rallying down the mountain every day.
Every time, i mean every time since about 50,000 miles, my front end has been "bad, out of spec. You need to get this repaired."
That was over 100kmi ago. It drives straight and doesn't eat tires unless I make it eat tires.
Just a public service announcement.

[cpu266]

I have a Ram 3500 dually with cummins that was wearing the outside of the front tires. Two sets of front tires in 58,000 miles. Alignment was checked several times, it was on spec. This last time we took all the toe adjustment out. So instead of the front tires being set with the toe in it is now "0" no toe. Drives fine and no outer wear yet with 3,000 on new front tires. I check weekly with a tread depth gauge.

[JimK-NY]

I avoid rotations for a variety of reasons. Instead I do one single rotation. Every 30k miles I get new tires on the rear where the camper weight causes a lot of wear. The rear tires move to the front for the next 30K miles. So I get 60K out of tires and always have new tires on the rear to carry the weight. I suppose I get some additional wear on the outside of my front tires but not enough to make any difference.

[languiduck]

Don't beat yourself up over it, many of us have done much worse and more costly things. I'd imagine you could try to rotate them to the back now and get on with it. If not, a couple new tires will get ya going and then you can find a place (or DIY) to rotate them properly.

Depending on the tire and how bad the wear is, you might be able to flip them over on your wheel and get more life out of them.

[NorseNW]

languiduck wrote:
I'm trying to figure out if the OP has gone 27,000 miles without a rotation, or is just starting to notice wear on the tires.
Either way, you tow or haul heavy, you gotta rotated the tires to get them to last.

Unfortunately you are correct. I never rotated the tires. When it's been serviced I was told they don't rotate dually tires. My stupidity for not doing it. But I will change my ways. Can't imagine why I've rotated tires on all other vehicles I've owned and not this one. I'm a learning!

[jimh406]

My front tires wore on the outside on both my F350 and F450 for the 19.5s. I just had a fresh alignment done with the new tires on the F450, so we'll see if that helps in a year or so. 🙂

[free_radical]

time2roll wrote:
I would still have the alignment checked. You should get a print with the measurements and the specs to verify yourself. With wear on the outside you are looking for toe to get close to zero and camber more toward the negative side of specification. There is always room for a tweak to make it better.

Post the measurements and specs for best comments if the shop just says all is fine when addressing the tire wear issue.

Consider a check with and without the camper to see if the weight is the real issue.

If the alignment is correct it makes no difference if truck is empty or loaded imo,,
If it did one would need to have the wheels aligned every time you put load on..or take it off,,which actualy one crooked mechanic sugested,to get more money out of me..
I suspect front tire wear could be from taking corners way too fast!?

[towpro]

on modern ram duallies, the inner rear wheels use a different tire pressure sensor. but the outer rear and fronts use the same sensors.

after I rotate LF to RR outer, RF to LR outer within 5 minutes of driving the TMPS system figures it out. But once I did have a front and rear swap places on display, but that was random, not from a tire rotation.

[Freep]

okan-star wrote:
My Dodge 3500 goes thru front tires fast , no alignment issues , more a heavy Cummins and a locker rear dually , they like to go straight when you turn , steers fine just wears outside tread of AT tires
I now rotate the front`s a lot - left front to right front and back
Rears stay on the rear , just inner to outer
If you put a worn front on next to a rear it will take that tire down as it gets a flatter surface on the , wears the good rear faster
And I buy a new set of fronts when there gone , two sets of front to one set of rears
Mountain driving takes a toll too

I wish I had known this a year ago. I let the dealer rotate the tires and they put the fronts in the rear. Now my tire pressure display is confused and shows the fronts in the rear.

After I replace them all, I'll keep the fronts in front.

We have a 3500 Cummins too. Love that truck.

[languiduck]

I'm trying to figure out if the OP has gone 27,000 miles without a rotation, or is just starting to notice wear on the tires.
Either way, you tow or haul heavy, you gotta rotated the tires to get them to last.

[Grit_dog]

Driving style, road conditions, climate and all the other stuff mentioned in other posts are a factor.
By climate I mean hot, cold, wet, dry, snowy. Taking a curve at 60 mph on a 100deg day on an abrasive roadway surface will take off a lot more rubber than other conditions.
I've experienced the best of least tire wear of any location I've lived (have lived in every US climate) up here in the PNW. Despite a lot of curvy roads, the fact that the pavement is wet (understatement) literally the majority of the year saves on tire wear.
Worst was living in Phoenix and also CO mountains where everything was a half hour jaunt or more down I 70, which is not a straight stretch of freeway, or winding state highways. I could roll a set of E rated wide tires on my half ton almost as fast as you guys with dooleys.

I'd bet someone running strictly over the road through the flat lands would experience much less outside front tire wear than someone "touring" wherever the road takes them.....per mile.

[time2roll]

I would still have the alignment checked. You should get a print with the measurements and the specs to verify yourself. With wear on the outside you are looking for toe to get close to zero and camber more toward the negative side of specification. There is always room for a tweak to make it better.

Post the measurements and specs for best comments if the shop just says all is fine when addressing the tire wear issue. Consider a check with and without the camper to see if the weight is the real issue.

[donn0128]

Guess Im in the minority. My dually has never had a wear issue on any of its tires.