ckid

New on posting to this board, but I've browsed it as a guest for years now and always found the answer I needed. This time, though, I'm not quite coming up with what I'm looking for. Real quick:

'01 cherokee classic
4.0 HO
3" lift from Rusty, add a spring in rear
adjustable track bar from Rusty
all else is stock

The answers I find through searching all relate to the tire being more worn on the outside or inside edge. Mine front passenger tire is wearing twice as fast as the other 3, but it is wearing evenly across the tread. This one tire has tread depth of 5mm, all other 3 tires have tread depth of 10mm.

Bought this jeep in '05 and from the start it always had a slight vibration as the tires wore (even street tires) between 40 & 50 mph, with the worst at 45. New tires always fixed it, as they wore it came back. Alignments checked out fine. No noticeable cupping on either of the front tires, no weird wear patterns.

Put 3" lift on with adjustable track bar a couple of years ago, ran super swamper radial muds on it (31x9.5), ran smooth until they really got worn, but always rotated every other oil change.

Now I have goodyear wrangler authority ATs on the jeep (31x10.5) on 15x7 steel (same as all my other tires have been on. When new, smooth ride (for a jeep, anyhow). I've not been as diligent at rotating this time, but in a way that's good because it helped me notice this uneven wear issue. Vibration is back again between 40 & 50 mph, worst at 45. No worse with lift than it ever was without the lift...

BUT, when I looked at my tires yesterday, I noticed the tread depth on the front passenger tire was literally half of the other three tires. The other three hardly look worn at all. Don't see any scrubbing, etc on the tire. Toe is set to 1/8". Inside and outside edges are worn evenly as best I can measure... if it's any different between outside and inside edge, I can't measure it (maybe a fraction of a mm), as is center. I run pressure at 28 front, 27 rear, which gives me good contact patches. No wiggling of tire to indicate ball joints are bad, though I've had some bad on another vehicle that didn't appear to be bad.

I'm going to have it looked at by an alignment shop, but I value the info I've always gotten from this board, so I wanted to post the question here and see if anyone else has run into only one tire wearing, but wearing evenly across the tread.

VTJeep

Tire pressure good? Could be toe issue...

sportrider

ball joints, hub bearing. inside wear can be caused by either

freegdr

posssible shock issue ?

ckid

My first inclination was ball joints, but there's no wiggle when I try to move the tire with hands in the 12 & 6 position. That's what has me stumped a bit is that everyone has always said bad ball joints cause wear on one side of he the tire, but this tire is worn evenly across the surface. It's just that the entire tire is worn twice that of the others.

Is there a way to check for a possible bad wheel bearing without tearing into it?

I did forget to mention one thing in the original post. From time to time I hear a pop from underneath when turning left. Of course, it never does it when I have someone underneath listening for it. I can't tell where it's coming from, but it never happens when I'm on the highway. It's always when I'm going really slow, like pulling into a parking space, and only when the steering wheel is turned almost all the way to the left, never to the right.

ragged1

Do you have a dragging caliper? Does the hub feel warm after driving? The even wear stumps me.

ckid

No dragging caliper. I did check that. I haven't checked the hub temp after driving. I changed shocks about a year ago, and I had the vibration issue with the old shocks on as well. I did, however, just go take a closer look at the shocks. I'm not positive my driveway is flat/even, but the shock on the worn wheel is compressed about 3/4-1 inch more than the other front shock, but I haven't looked at them on a good flat surface.

Gonna take it in to have alignment and shocks checked, see if the shop can offer some suggestions if that's not the case. Had it aligned not long ago, but NC roads aren't the best in world when it comes to pot holes, etc.

Would a worn shock cause that kind of excessive wear on the one tire? I don't really see any signs of cupping, etc like you usually see with a worn shock.

ragged1

The shock just dampens travel. I'd check your spring on that side. The spring is what's sagging. Maybe snapped a coil? Not sure it would affect wear, but you should check that out.

ckid

Figured I'd post back what I found out since a lot of these threads get left hanging.

It's been a while that I've let it sit, but I finally took the front end apart to see what was going on. U joints. The needle bearings, especially on the passenger side where the tire as wearing so funny, looked like gunpowder. Easy swap and all was well.

kuiswki

Hi, got the same problem but mine is the driver tire. U joints fixed the problem??
Thanks