sherman

My front tires are cupping at 34500mi,there is no vib or steering pull just the howel,any ideas other than replacing them?Any one else have this problem?The inside tread on both front tires are cupped.

eb290

Jack it up, get the weight of the front suspension and ck for play in the upper ball joints.

EB

SuperGewl

What air pressure have you been running in them
How oftem have you been getting them balanced and rotated
Have you ever had an alignment done
Answer these questions and you may infact hav ethe answer to your own question
When running empty you should have running about 50psi in the front and 40 in the rear, asuming this is an 2500 or 3500 SRW per the tire info book that's in the glove compartment
Loaded you should be running around 60 psi front and 75 rear. This info is for the 03, SRW 3500 so most are about the same.
I currently have 48k on mine (BFG's) and still have about 8mm left, roughly 1/2 the tread.
Fill out more info on your truck so we can help you better also.

sherman

I have an o4 1 ton dually Cummins 6sd 4.10 q-cab, that spends most of the time pulling a 6 horse tr.Front tire pressures-65# rears 75#,there is no pull to the left or right,the truck drives as straight as an arrow,there is no vibration, the steering wheel is absolutely still, the only thing is you hear the howel, if it wasn't for the noise you would not suspect anything is wrong.It is not a balance problem or an alignment problem,I have a couple million miles driving trucks so I have wore out my share of tires.The cupping is only on the inside of the tread pattern on the first bar on both sides of the front,there is no cupping on the rears,the 34,500 mi are mostly highway at 70 mph.The tires are Goodyear Wrangler 235/80-17 tires that came with the truck.

eb290

Again, ck your upper ball joints. If they are loose, it wil cause the insides of the tires to wear first and can cause the cupping you are talking about. That is my suggestion.

EB

Hounddog

How many miles between rotations? How often is trailer pulled? The trailer affects alignment.Weighted bed nose of truck comes up etc.

Big Bob

Your shocks may also be bad.

SuperGewl

As stated here, weighted bed, nose comes up which inturn will cause the front wheels to come off the ground and scrub the ouside of the tires when turning due to the, I believe, chamber being off, when loaded. Yo may want to have it adjusted slighted so that when towing the outside tire edge is not touching as much Of course this will effect normal driving when not loaded, so you may have to find a happy medium between the two.

sherman

Well I finally got the truck into the shop to sort out the cupping front tire problem and after a complete front end check the caster,camber and toe where well inside OEM specs,the ball joins were good,tire pressures were spot on,that left tire rotation as the cuperate,10,000 mi's is too long before rotation.We took the cupped fronts and put them on the inside rear and put the outside rears to the front, the next rotation at 7000mi will have the now outside rears crossing over to the fronts and the fronts going to the rears.The truck now drives with out any howel.The lesson here learnt is to rotate every 6-7000 mi not 10-12mi.

Hounddog

I rotate only as needed which driving habits and conditions affect.it does take LOOKING at the tires from time to time which some folks NEVER do.