tire wearing on outside

[campgrandma]

Not sure if this is the right forum, but thought I would start here. Hubby noticed when we parked our camper at our latest stop that the rear right tire on our 35ft Cougar has worn badly on the outside. We check our tires pretty much every time we stop. We left NC about two weeks ago and are now in Illinois. Any advice on why this tire is wearing?

[Bull_Rider]

What Barney says...

We just replaced the suspension on our Cougar 294RLS. Tire on the right rear worn down bald, other three looked great. Our RV is 8 years old. Had a bent axle on the right rear. Don't recall hitting anything, never overloaded.

The leaf spring on the right side had come unpinned. The bushing were shot, the equalizers were worn out.

We had all new parts installed, and everything is has a grease zerks for greasing the moving parts.

Suspension maintenance is a necessary part of owing an RV.

The worn parts are easier to detect if you take the weight off of the wheels.

[Francesca_Knowl]

Wheel bearings going bad can also cause shoulder wear on a tire. You might look for signs that the wheel has heated up (bluing of metal) etc or even jack it off the ground and test for side-to-side play.

[BarneyS]

I would crawl underneath and take a look at the spring hangers, the equalizer hangers and also check for a broken spring or bent axle. You may have hit a pothole or something that either bent or broke one of those items, or they could just be wearing out.

You would be amazed at the short time it takes to destroy the plastic bushings inside the spring eyes. Take a look at this thread for some eye opening pictures of what they can look like.

If only one of the tires is wearing unusually, it kind of eliminates an overloading problem. I am not a tire expert but that is what I would do in this case and then I would take it to a good tire shop.
Good luck.
Barney