Tire wear question, how to fix ?

[chrispaine]

Well I need tires bad! What would cause this type of wear? I need new shocks for sure but other then that the front end is tight. Could this only be caused my ball-joints? I want to fix the problem before I put good tires on it! as you can see they are worn very bad on the inner side!
thanks.

[gary2070]

I would bring it to a good independent front end shop and let them check it out and all it probably needs is a good 4 wheel alignment.

[Dave]

Needs ball joints and an alignment bad

[banks7.3]

could also be the tow meaning they ires r leaning towards the a frames

[gary2070]

You can check those ball joints by jacking the tire up slightly and put a bar under the tire and see if you can get any up and down play out of those ball joints.

[X JBM X]

like these guys have said, ball joints and an alignment. However, make sure you check the wheel bearings while you're at it.

[chrispaine]

Well I checked the ball joints and they are tight, so now I'm happy I don't have to replace them yet but pizzed that I don't what is causing the inner tire wear! And yeah I jacked one side of the truck up and I had a jack stand right next to the lower ball joint so I think I did it right.

I guess I just need to find someone who knows the front end because I can't see what else could cause the inner wear and the dumb guy at bell tire checked alignment and said I just need to rotate the tires. I can't be driving about on these tires much longer, its just a matter of time before I loose one. I have a set of new tires but the inner started cupping very bad so I took them off until I can fix the problem.

Well if anyone knows of a shop that can figure this out any where near south east Michigan or near Toledo Ohio that let me know, I'm willing to drive to a good shop at this point!

[PGreenSVT]

Obviously camber issues could cause wear on the inner or outer part of the tire but I don't think there is enough camber movement in our trucks for that to be the problem. Another possible cause and I think more probable would be for your fronts to have too much toe out. Too much toe out would cause the inner edge of the tire to wear. Too much toe in causes the outer edge to wear. Make sure that you set the toe at 0 if at all possible and no more than 1/32" of toe in if not.

[Highbeam]

I have one worn like that but on the outside. It was from bad ball joints. If it was toe then the wear would be on both front tires. You seem to only say it is happening on the one tire so I am voting for trouble with that one corner of the truck and not alignment.

You really need to lift hard on the wheel to detect the ball joint slop. No dainty rocking of the tire, grab it with both arms and try and flip the truck over. Looking for slop in the vertical direction. The unit bearings offer easy to detect slop in all directions when they die.

[chrispaine]

Originally Posted by Highbeam

I have one worn like that but on the outside. It was from bad ball joints. If it was toe then the wear would be on both front tires. You seem to only say it is happening on the one tire so I am voting for trouble with that one corner of the truck and not alignment.

You really need to lift hard on the wheel to detect the ball joint slop. No dainty rocking of the tire, grab it with both arms and try and flip the truck over. Looking for slop in the vertical direction. The unit bearings offer easy to detect slop in all directions when they die.

sorry, I forgot to mention that it is both from tires and it is the inner only! I was using my foot on the bottom and hands on the top to try and find slop!