What makes a tire look like THIS?

My first thought is it looks like it was on the front end of a car with the toe in or toe out way off.

Look and see if it is an ST tire for a trailer or a regular car tire.

My thinking is the wear did not come from the trailer but I could be wrong.

Looks like well worn tires and improper camber. Is the worn side the outside or the inside? Is it like that on the other tire?

If the worn side is the inside, I'd expect that it's due to overload.

Put a level on the wheel, top to bottom, is it completely vertical? Some axles are pre-bent to flex the "other" way during load, but this isn't typical of a utility trailer.

Worst case, I think you're looking at a new axle. I don't think that tire wear is really that bad - the rest of the tire is well past the marker. Likely, I'd live with it.

Hope you didn't pay too much for the trailer. It looks like it either needs a new axle or the old one needs to be bent back to specs.

TxTwoSome wrote:
My first thought is it looks like it was on the front end of a car with the toe in or toe out way off.

Look and see if it is an ST tire for a trailer or a regular car tire.

My thinking is the wear did not come from the trailer but I could be wrong.

This was my "first" reaction when I saw the tires. I can't imagine a utility trailer being used so much the tires would wear to that extent. My first reaction was, this tire came off the front of a motorized vehicle, probably put on the trailer just to sell.

As TxTwoSome said above, check to see if they are ST tires or a regular car tire

At any rate, they should be changed. But I really have a hard time believing that wear was caused by your trailer being out of align.

If the trailer was out of align enough to cause this much wear on a tire, I would think the trailer would track behind the tow vehicle very bad. It would try to move right or left. That would be very noticeable when you're towing it. If it tows straight, chances are, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the trailer or the axles.

Junk tire. I had one or two do that to me in my lifetime. It had nothing to do with my trailer axel. I replaced the tire and went on with life.

Someone overloaded that axle by a fair amount causing it to bend. That makes the bottom of the wheels angle out and the top angle in so the tire rides on the inside edge. That causes the inside to wear faster. It also looks like it was not balanced so you get a flat spot on the heavy side of the tire. It is clearly a trailer tire.

Sometimes an inexperienced person will jack a trailer up by placing the jack under the axle tube causing it to bend the other way. That causes wear on the outside edge of the tire. Trailers should be jacked by the frame or under the spring perches to prevent that from happening.

keymastr wrote:
Someone overloaded that axle by a fair amount causing it to bend. That makes the bottom of the wheels angle out and the top angle in so the tire rides on the inside edge. That causes the inside to wear faster. It also looks like it was not balanced so you get a flat spot on the heavy side of the tire. It is clearly a trailer tire.

Sometimes an inexperienced person will jack a trailer up by placing the jack under the axle tube causing it to bend the other way. That causes wear on the outside edge of the tire. Trailers should be jacked by the frame or under the spring perches to prevent that from happening.

X2

How to read trailer tire wear

https://www.kendonusa.com/downloads/Kendon-Tie-Down-Tire-Wear-Chart.pdf

It's a trailer tire.
Scalloped on the inside.

I only looked at the tire closest to me when I picked it up. It was like brand new. Took a quick look at this one and it just looked worn figured fine add the price of one tire, didn't see the inside scalloping till I got home.

Now that I went out to see if it was a trailer tire I noticed they are 2 different brand tires. So some changing went on somewhere down the line with the trailer.

Seller was a real nice old completely disabled vet but cantankerous and little out there. Daughter did most of the talking for him. I figured asking him why one tire looked like new and the other worn would have been fruitless to get a straight answer. And it was 98 degrees out today just wanted to hook up and go!

I'll throw a level on it like dcg9381 suggested.

I had one of my OFF-ROAD POPUP 15-inches tires doing something like that with about 25K miles on them. It wore on the inside but was more cupped. I determined my tire was bouncing...

Turned out one my four of five trips I made recently up and down I59 in North Alabama where the concrete slabs were buckled for about 60 miles knocked out all of the tire weights on that one tire. My poor POPUP trailer was coming off the ground no matter how slow I dared to drive... Also almost lost my top Air Conditioner unit as well as the four bolts got loose too...

Also this trailer has the shocks mounted at a real bad angle. It was time for new tires anyway so I got two more of better BFG LT's

Had both wheels weighted again and also had a new shock mount welded in a better angle location for both sides...

Wear wise all has been fine ever since then...

Roy Ken