Tire cupping

garybo

Adventurer
Our toe in range is -.06 to +.06. We've corrected from -.02 to +.02 and see how things go. Question: when there's a "range" of settings, is the chosen setting trial and error or based on something specific to that rig, like tire type, rig weight compared to GVW, vehicle use (off road, on road), etc? In other words, why pick .02, .04 or .06?
 

4x4junkie

Explorer
My thought on this is to pick as close to 0 (tires parallel) as possible. Anything other than 0 increases the wear rate of the front tires (maybe not by much, but by some amount nonetheless).
I've played with the toe settings on my own rigs and haven't really been able to tell any significant difference in their handling going from wheels-straight-parallel to max specs either direction, so I just leave it where tire life will be best (maybe on a performance car it would be easier to tell a difference than on a modified 4x4 truck? I don't know).

As for cupping, my experience has pretty much always been that it occurs when the tires are simply not rotated frequently enough.
 

garybo

Adventurer
just back to civilization. Thanks for the advice. I'll see how things go, rotate more frequently and not buy severe off road tires again since we don't need them.
 

garybo

Adventurer
rotated the cupped steer tires to the opposite outer dual position and after 4000 miles they are almost smooth again.
 

jronwood

Adventurer
Perhaps these tires wont work for you, but I REALLY like Goodyear "G" series full steel casing (like tractor trailer tires) stiff with no sway and in limited tread patterns. Many fully loaded duallys use these (with mechanic bodies, or our Pa Forestry Dept) if they are running loaded all the tiime, seems this is a good tire. I use them on ALL my 16" trailer tires, NEVER sway like an LT tire when over loaded. Rock solid.

https://www.google.com/search?sourc...=1T4ADFA_enUS455US455&q=goodyear+g+series+16"

Ironwood
 

Buliwyf

Viking with a Hammer
Every truck in my fleet deos this. Good, bad, new, it deosn't matter. The GM's are the worst of the bunch. (piss poor shocks, worst slow speed ackerman)

-rotate every 5,000 with any aggressive tire or when towing
-rotate every 10,000 for normal tires and unloaded use.
-learn to dually cross rotate without changing the tres rotation. You'll have to do this yourself. Tire shops are too stupid to figure it out. Draw a chalk rotation mark onthe sidewall.

Left Outside Rear to Right Inside Rear
ROR to LIR
LF to ROR
RF to LOR
LIR to LF
RIR to RF

I think I got that right? If you make yourself a diagram, use triangles for tires to show which way the wheel faces.

You'll need all 4 tires off to rotate that way, and the truck on 4 bottle jacks. Flipping the tires increases blow outs under load in my experience, that's why I rotate duallys this way.

-Oh yeah, slow down in the turns.

-and avoid manuevering tightly in parking lots, trucks have crappy akerman at low speeds and scrub the heck out of the front tires, my trucks actaully leave black marks from turning on fresh concrete. Just park in the back.

-check balljoints
-Bilstein shocks
-stop letting women drive your truck! LOLz.

That's all I got for tire cupping.
 

garybo

Adventurer
Since we have limited space in our overland camper, we have one bottle jack. You might say to leave out the beer and get 4 jacks- which is more important? always a compromise! Your rotation scheme is also what Fuso recommends.
 

Buliwyf

Viking with a Hammer
Well, I usually just rotate when I'm at home. But if you don't have room for more than one bottle jack, which is cool, they're heavy, and you need to rotate tire in the middle of your Expo.......

Just chop up a fallen tree with your chain saw and use the log chunks as jackstands. Been there, done that.:ylsmoke:

Or get to a truck garage. Chalk mark all the tires, let thier tech get the truck in the air, and then have him remove the tires while you arrange on the floor where they go back on.

But how often do you trek more than 5,000 miles without a chance to rotate at home? Can't say I've ever done that.

In my experience, 99% of decent techs don't stand a chance of figuring out what kind of rotation I'm suggesting, unless your a master tech like me and speak thier language. It's just too darn cumbersome to explain.
 

garybo

Adventurer
Might finish this thread with the fact that I had even tire wear except for cupping after proper rotation, balancing, alignment, and inflation for weight, fore and aft. The cupping was cured by increasing tire inflation over the recommendation for the weight. One might say that increasing the inflation just raised the cupped tire edges probably causing the center to wear more. The cupping went away and the tires still wear even. That's all I can say.
 

Stumpalump

Expedition Leader
So your truck+camper= 14k #...that makes more sense!

A 14k# camper...yikes!

Anyway, cupping is often an indicator of belt shifting...could be caused by several factors; too high sidewall, over loading, age,...

Bill
That's what I was thinking. Cupping is often the first sign that the tread is separating. New tires are cheap life insurance.
 

Malamute

Observer
I think theres more than one reason tires cup. As mentioned before, braking (not breaking as in broken) may have a part in it. Braking tends to stretch the lugs into the voids when force is applied, which gives each individual lug a high/low look, or sawtoothed. I'm not surprised it became more noticeable with a load, the force on the tires is greater when braking.
 
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