94 F150 2 wheel drive; installed new
front <a href="http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=37919709&siteid=39251846">tires </a>- wears outside edges quickly- am I in need of something like a frontend alignment? took it into a shop, they said that is normal for all ford's with I beam suspension. Am I getting the truth or is there something I can do?
snowballed

 

yeah i would say bull id go get an alignment no manufacturor is going to allow that for one unusual tire wear is a safty hazard you might want to see if their is a recall on your truck

 

Hi, how about use some periods in your reply so we can understand them!! Thank You!

 

hey you probbaly need to get a camber adjustment. it sounds like thier maybe bowed a little bit if just the out side of the tire is wearing.

 

Yeah, sorry about the whole period thing. I talked to a guy i know at a ford dealership. He said he has seen the problem before. He said that an alignment is all they do for it and it usually fixes the problem.

 

I've have the same problem on my 93 F150 4x4. I asked my father (he's a mechanic) and he said that the steering linkage on this particular generation of Ford trucks is very poorly designed and allows for terrible bump-steer. He suggested that I should align the front end to have about 1/16th tow out and the tire wear would not be as great.

 

I'll put in another vote for Alignment.

XXL

 

If the wear is on both sides, it oculd also be air pressure. If the <a href="http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=37919709&siteid=39251846">tires </a>are underinflated, the edges will wear out quicker. Alignment is usually one side or the other, not both.

 

We had the same problem on our 96 F-250 4x4. The outside edge on the passenger side went bald quite quickly. So we took it to the dealer and they gave it a wheel alignment and we haven't had a problem since. Some people though tried to tell us that it was from turning at high speeds which we do not do.

 

Twin I-beams have always had a tire wear problem dating back to '65. 4X's were usually the worst. With some trucks there didn't seem to a 100% cure ... align, re-align, heat and bend the beam, cold bend the beam, different shocks and even then the best cure was rotating the tires on the rims occassionally to even out the wear.

Find a shop that knows Twin I-beams and they'll help you out.

 

They can also be "within factory spec's" and still wear the tires fast. My '95 4X4 is "within spec's" but looks funny and is wearing the inside of the tires like crazy because of the negative camber. As I type, it's in the shop now getting a different brand of axle drop brackets installed to correct the lift kit induced camber problem. Then they are going to weld the cracked crossmember back together and weld the crossmember to the frame because the rivets are loose.

 

What you can do is the chalk test. Make sure your tires are at proper PSI from the rating on the door jam sticker. Put a line about an inch wide accross all of your tires. Drive it a little bit in a parking lot and check the wear of the line. If the line wears more in the middle than on the outsides, decrease air pressure. If it wears on the outside more than the middle, increase air pressure. You can only do so much with an alignment, air pressure in the tires is a big determining factor for tread wear. You want that chalk line as evenly rubbed as possible for maximum tread life.