This is peanuts compared to camper tires.......wait till you see the crap they try to put on some of the campers out there. When you go to buy your 5th wheel this experience will be very usefull.

 

I bet! I assume there's something in there about the tires causing vibration issues and such! If you get a chance, can you post that notice here?

 

I do not own a camper, but, yes, camper and trailer tires in general. A friend of mine has told me about the horrors of various camper/trailer tires. He said, and I agree, that the best to do with those tires is replace them with a straight tread truck tire if you can get them in that size, or close to that size.

 

(with a sarcastic tone)I think belt separation can cause vibration issues. [LINK]

Nitto Dura Grappler Highway Terrain is on the same list.

*EDIT* The sarcasm isn't aimed at anybody here... just at the manufacturer, the 4 shops that couldn't figure it out, Stinky, myself, and the SD life in general.

 

I'm damn certain it can!

And can also lead to sudden tire failure!

As well as strange tread wear!

 

Hence the sarcastic tone.

Thoughts going through my head - if I truly have belt separation on two tires or more (if I do, I caught it early):

• My previous set was shaking so bad from wear, that I thought I had something else wrong with the truck when tires didn't completely fix it.
• The tire shop kept pulling the tires and re-balancing, without catching anything unusual with the tire - maybe because it was so early in the process.
• It absolutely fits perfectly with all the symptoms I had - I even questioned this very possibility while driving down the road.
• I spent a lot of money and time chasing this demon.
• In the last few weeks when it was rabidly (not a typo) getting much worse, the same tire store that sold the tires to me was completely stumped - and the recall was active at this time.
• I received my notice just hours after yet another significant expendature on the truck "in the hopes" I could solve the tire wear issue alone - knowing full well this would not solve the weird vibrations.
• While this isn't major, I found it irritating that some shared the opinion (between the lines) that I am just too **** to own a Superduty. To that, I say "maybe". However... I feel the doubting Thomases should spend $25K on upgrades, maintenance, and repairs - and 50 weekends under the truck in 3 1/2 years (like I have) before they share an opinion on expected results from maximum effort. One might even go so far as to say a very small group of forum members are **** as to what they expect to read on an open forum. Maybe too ****.

Rant over. Since the recall will only let me swap with the same vendor, I have to peruse what other products they have that might perform better in my driving environment.

 

I think you should continue to consider shocks until you rule them out. I am intrigued by Fox Shox, but you may want to throw these Tough Dogs from Australia into the hopper for consideration. Once of the German members on the sportsmobileforum.com installed these on his van. Remember our vans weigh 8k to 10k.


"See here a comparison between tough dog, rancho´s, and OME´s"

 

Rich I think you have made some very good points on the subject at hand. I would like to point out why I am pretty sure why the tire shop did not catch a tire going bad they have a standard wheel balancer . I had pointed out that you should find a shop that uses Hunter but I did not get into detail as why. Well a standard wheel balancer is just that it balances where the Hunter GSP9700 does so much more. This will explain better then I can so please read and then you'll understand my point.
About tire pull issues:
Hunter GSP9700 Wheel vibration Control System solves wheel vibration and tire pull problems that balancers and aligners can't fix
Explains why the GPS9700 is better than anything out there!
http://www.hunter.com/balancer/roadforce/4159T.pdf

I do feel this will be a turning point for you and Stinky and I wish you luck in picking your next set of tires. I'm sure you'll do your homework first. So after you get the new rubber on the truck please post up what FEA specs they ended up please. And if a tire is ever in question go find a Hunter GSP9700

 

I asked what tire you ran....and you listed 3 and stated they all shread(coopers we had the problem with)......we only have 2 7.3's left at work now but when they did the same thing(outter wear, cupping) it was cheap tires that were on the trucks. were talking 5000 miles on tires and cupping...Uniroyal was on them before with no problems...

have you thought about trying a Michelin, Uniroyal or a BF Goodrich?

 

Tugly, remember when we rolled the quarter over the tire and nothing but minor cupping. My rear shocks are blown and 2K miles in one month I'm seeing the same affects you are.

 

I was looking at a set of Michelins and that very set had a recall notice announced on the forum this week - albeit a different size than the ones I'm looking at.


The tires were load balanced at one point. I don't know what machine they have, but if it's capable of load balancing - it might be pretty advanced. This was done early in the game, so maybe there was nothing to see - I dunno.


Specs:

• Toe in: 0.016 (old 0.0)
• Caster back: 3.5 degrees (old 3.7-3.8)
• Camber in: 0.7 degrees (old 0.0)

scotttahoe - I remember really looking the tires over, but by Bend - the heel and toe damage was bad enough to hear on the highway. We didn't have that in Reno. After my little lesson in enemy recognition (tire wear), I don't see any cupping on Stinky yet - but I have heel & toe, and inside diagonal wear. I caught it early enough that a tire rotation and a few race tune tests would clear it up.


tonym17 - My problem is as much incompetence as it tires. I am a nudnik at vibration recognition and tire wear reading. I have never in my life had to deal with such things. I've had tire problems and vehicle problems to be sure, but one visit to the shop always gave me the answer before now.


Stinky has always been hard on tires. To answer that, I was Buck$Zooka blasting my way through the undercarriage since May of this year. New this, upgraded that, aligned this, calibrated that - a barrage of green in all the invisible places of the truck. To cap that off, I installed a tire with a fantastic reputation in my area and a very sound design. I thought the problem with the Generals and the Coopers was behind me - until Bend, Oregon. This is when it all went sideways - everybody put on their deer-in-the-headlight glasses.


On that last bit: My tire shop's a total fail, including the part where they said my front end shouldn't cause a problem. I was talking to the tire shop yesterday and discussing the tire swap before I use Stinky on the mountain pass. He asked if there was any tire wear and I told him there was heel & toe and inside diagonal. He told me I have a camber problem. It was at this point I flipped him off. Of course - he couldn't see it through the phone.


This is where I take ownership of much of my problem: Every time I hit a dead end, I'd take it to another store of the same provider. As you may notice with Stinky, I'm a loyal cuss. My tire store has treated me right for over 25 years through countless vehicles, and this truck is kicking their *** as much as it is kicking mine. With all the different stores having a fail at different stages of this process, not one of them has the whole picture - and that's my fault. I have now reached a point where I would walk in with fingers extended, demanding they special-order a tire they don't stock to replace an otherwise excellent tire.


My frustration level has put me in a place where I have badly mismanaged this whole scenario, and started barking at the postman.

 

The tire issue should have been spotted by the tire store right off the bat. When you took them in to get them rebalanced, it should have been apparent they were out of balance, and they shouldn't have gotten that bad in just a few miles. I really hope you get this resolved. Like I said, I know how it feels. I spent damn near a year working on my 08 trying to a vibration issue. And a lot of money trying to do so too.

 

While not knowing exactly what part cleared it up - it was something in the alignment and Moog camber slugs that addressed the vibration. I had to take Stinky out for a test drive before I made any other changes to the truck, and he's a different truck. The last of vibrations are gone, after fighting this one problem for two years. I now hear a part knocking (maybe a shock?) somewhere up front - it was drowned out by the vibration noise before. I'll get that fixed soon. It's a waiting game on the tire wear, but I am optimistic - for a change.

That's a merry Christmas for the wife, Stinky, and I.

Here's to hoping your Christmas will be as merry as ours.

 

That's great news Tugley. Just curious, same alignment shop as previous work, a high-tek place or ol' school?

Merry Christmas!

 

Yipee!
Merry Christmas