Evening all....have a weird situation here, will give all the details I have to see if any of you have some of ideas of what my trouble may be.

First I have an 2002 F150 XLT Super Cab with the FX4 package, 5.4, 3.55 open differential, 4x4. Under normal driving conditions I carry about 100lbs and myself at 235lbs in the cab and about 300lbs of load in the truck botool box, tools, chains, oil, misc., etc.) I drive 120 miles round trip to work and back M-F on 100% paved roads at an average speed of 65mph, sometimes 75-80mph.(South Dakota county roads) and maybe several miles of gravel during the week and weekends.(This has been my routine since getting new tires, this is what the tires are used on....)

Here is my problem... December 8th of 2006 with approximately 108,000mls on my truck I had Bridgestone Dueller AT/Revo's in a LT 26570R17 size installed, 4 of them all the way around, brand new, since then I have put on approximately 15000 miles on these tires with the above routine. They have been rotated 4 times, first on 01-11-07 with 111,112mls, second on 02-16-07 with 114,594mls, 3rd on 03-31-07 with 119,091mls and 4th/last on05-12-07 with 123,325mls. So the 4 tires have shared equal time front/back-almost.

All rotates were done by a Ford dealership and were rotated front to back or back to front, which ever way you want to look at it. Up until mid-April I kept all 4 tires at 50psi and then lowered to about 48 psi which is what I am at now. I don't accelerate hard, I do come to screaming stops quite often so I am hard on the brakes, the truck has not been loaded down or used for any towing since the new tires have been installed.

So here is the trouble, the tires that are currently on the front are allready down to 8/32" and the rears at about 12/32", these tires come new with 16/32" of tread depth on them...the 12/32" set is at a good amount of tread wear for 15000mls but I am concerned about the set that is at 8/32". I realized the difference in wear about 2 weeks before the last rotate. There is no uneven wear on any of the tires, no alignment issues, truck drives smooth and straight, a little stiff due to the LT's. What I can not understand is why they are not wearing down in depth evenly, I do understand that the rear set tread will wear down faster but the rotates should be evening that out and I could understand if all 4 tires were at 8/32" but why such the huge difference in tread wear?

I have contacted the original dealer on the issue and the only thing he could think of was that I was rotating too much, the dealer I have all my maintenance done at just said "I don't understand it either" after a quick look over during the rotate-the mechanic could not see anything with the truck that could cause the excessive wear, I also contacted Bridgestone customer service last week and spoke with a warranty rep.(these tires do not have any mileage warranty on them) and alls I got out of him was that the rear tires wear faster and that only getting 30000mls of out of this model of tire was normal.

Before this set of tires I had the exact same tire except in the P-Rated version, same size, model, etc. and got 55k out of them with about 2/32" of tread left.

So can anyone figure out if this is abnormal wear? Do I have the tires inflated to the correct pressure for my driving habits and for what the truck is used for? Am I rotating too often or not often enough? Do I have a faulty set of tires?-From different lots possibly?

Any help would be appreciated for I am stumped and with the commute I have I would hate too see this expensive set of tires be eaten up before the end of the year.

Thanks for the long read but I want to cover everything.

Thanks again,

Travis

BTW...here is a link to the specs for the tires...

http://www.bridgestonetire.com/tires...productid=1055

 

You my friend are faced with the same thing I had.. Before I got my super duty I had an 00 F150 V6 Supercab 2wd and I put on 265/75R16 LT Dueler AT Revo's.... They wore out crazy as well.. On my super duty I have now I had the 285/75R16s on them as well.. I put brand new tires on them and I had them about 4k miles before I sold them off for my lift and 35s.. When I checked the tire one was 14/32, 13/32, 11/32 and 10/32.. I couldn't figure out why.. Now my BFG's I have now are wearing even and I'm not even at my first rotation.. It's something about Bridgestone tires.. Especially the Duelers.. They seem to wear out really weird.. It could be a number of issues.. Odd alignment but not enough for you to notice in the steering.. Load difference.. Your rotation time is bout right, generally every 5k miles..

In all honestly you are probably better off getting a different tire down the road.. The difference in your P's and the LT's wearing are thickness, sidebelts and strength.. The LT's will be alot stiffer due to them being for light trucks with load.. They will sheer rubber a lot quicker then the P series that will somewhat conform to the road.. Again you can't see this unless you have a magnify glass and 100x zoom lol..

Only thing I can recommend is check your alignment if it hasn't been done.. Also check each tire and record the serial number.. Then write down where that tire is on the truck.. Keep a log of that each time you rotate.. Write down again what serial number is were on the truck and the tread depth at rotation time and see if you can find a pattern.. Most likely the tires that wore down the quickest may very well be the back tires.. Now when you rotate are they criss crossing the back to the front or moving the back straight to the front on the same side? You should always criss cross due to varients in wind, terrain, etc.. That will give you the most evenest (is that even a word? lol) wear.

Hope this helps you..

 

I rotate front to back, back to front, that is what I have been told to do for radials on a rear-wheel drive vehicle and it is not so much the wear, it is the uneven wear, 4 of the same tires, installed at the same time, equally rotated, 2 are at 8/32" 2 are at 12/32" that is a HUGE difference, I would have gone with P rated tires but I was working for the old man when I purchased them and he likes to borrow me and my truck to do a lot of overloading and over-towing(farm work) and the P-rated duellers I had previously did not like the loading at all, of course 2 weeks after getting the LT's I got my old job back and now they are being used for commuting-fun!

The P-rated Duellers I had did wear weird the first 20k..I only had 50k on the truck when I had them installed and the tires were wearing so unevenly I thought I had alignment issues at 50k, the tires evened out nicely after 20k and I also found out the P-rated like to be rotated every 3k not 5-6k.

It still does not make any sense why 2 wear faster than the other 2 under fairly equal conditions.