front tire wear

[buckdropper]

The front tires on my 96 X are wearing on the insides, could anyone give me some reasons they would wear on the inside like they are. thanks in advance.

 

[sk1er17]

Need an alignment. Probably the front toe.

Before you take it in though jack up your front end to see if any parts are bad.. so you dont buy something you dont need..

With the tires off the ground:
1: wiggle the tire left/right.. if it moves freely a little you may need an outer or inner tie-rod.
2: wiggle the tire up/down.. if it moves at all up/down you're lookin at ball joints.
3: if it moves left/right and up/down.. its either a combination of #1and2 or hub assembly.
4: if the tires feel solid you're good and just need an alignment. *the tires will move left/right, you'll know if there's free play in the joint though.

It's always good to have an idea of what needs to be done before bringing it in for a repair

Good luck

 

[Opera House]

If it is 4WD and over 100K, the front hub bearings could be bad. You should notice some noise from them. You won't notice any play in them. When jacking up the wheel you might notice the tire kicking in if the bearing is bad.

 

[nitefish12]

apprx. how long would a pair of tires last? I think I have 28's, want 33's when I get a lift, but would like to use out 28's. They look fairly new, there's between 5k-10k miles on them.

 

[Joey P]

I have the same problem with the inside of the tires wearing funny. I also have a vibration but I don't know if it's related or not. My cv's are brand new so for me, that's not it. Anywho, what does a bearing assembly typicaly cost?

 

[sk1er17]

you're looking at $150-$200 for the part. Its very easy to do yourself so dont pay labor.

wierd inside tire wear could simply be the tow is out.. a vibration could be caused but the uneven wear... if you have those kinda symptoms id take a good look at the ball joints.

 

[Joey P]

I'm thinking the vibration may be the uneven wear, BUT I also get a hum of sorts from the front. I don't know if it's the awd or not but it's annoying. The ball joints would make the tires like this / \ right? Would the hub bearing assembly make the tires do the same thing? How do I know if it's the hub bearing or the ball joints when I jack it up and try to move the tires left/right or up/down?

 

[Joey P]

Okay, I'm doing some searching around this site and I am positive that it's the hub-bearing assembly. Now I do some more searching and come across a website called www.car-part.com. I search my area and I find that a place close bye sells hubs for 75-85 bucks, brand new. Is this what I would look for? Or do I need to specifically ask for hub-bearing assembly? Are the hub and bearing seperate pieces?

 

[Opera House]

The hub is a one piece sealed unit for the 4WD. Cheapest I've ever found is the Timken with the sensor for $140. Suppose there might be one without the sensor for less, but have never heard of one that low. I had noisy tires and a bad bearing. Noise was everywhere. Really couldn't discern anything without replacing the bearing.

 

[Joey P]

What does the sensor do? Is this the ABS senso? I'm actully a pretty capable shadetree mechanic, but I just don't know anything about the 2nd gen front ends. Thanks for your help and hopefully I didn't hijack this thread.

 

[Sallad420]

Isn't wear on one side a CAMBER issue, "Feathering" of the tread is typically a Toe In/Out issue. (from what I remember)

The price for bearings is $440 per side (Canadain), I'm going to do mine either this weekend or the next. But I got mine from JDraper, he sold me his used set. Which saved me TONS of cash.

It does look easy and JDraper said it's quite easy to do. Just expensive in parts.

I also have wear on the inside of my tires, I thought it was a Camber issue, but maybe it's just my bad bearings.

 

[Joey P]

Okay, I got new tires and the hum/vibration at 65-70 and anything else funny in the front end is gone.........Except the fact my tires still sit like this.../--\ . The Drivers side is worse but they both are like that. What could it be? I'm still thinking the bearing assembly because nothing seems to move when I jack it up. Just looking for some more insight. An alignment for me is 49 bucks so I don't want to get an alignment if that does nothing for me.

 

[Opera House]

My tires look like that and can't help but think it is an optical illusion. My tires were also worn on the inside, mostly drivers side. Replaced lower ball joints, tie rod ends, and wheel bearings. These weren't really that worn, but drivers side bearing was really noisy. For the last 10K miles I have avoided an alignment other than a little toe in done by tape measure. So far I can not measure any difference in wear. They still look funny though I can't measure anything on an inclinometer.

 

[sk1er17]

do you have the 2" TT? If you do that'll make the tires look like that. even if you have an alignment they may still be a little off. Mine look like that because its much more noticable when you put larger tires on, but my camber adjustments are also maxed out. They're withing "specs" though, so im not worried about it, especially since they've been that way for 2 years now. I just rotate em every 3K and they wear fine.

I dont know how bad yours are compared to mine though... you should check out those upper control arms to see where your camber's at.

 

[rino351]

One of our work trucks was wearing really bad on the inside like that, then we fouond out that it was the ball joint, so we got that replaced, got an alignment and rotation, and now everything as good as new.

 

[buckdropper]

It is the drivers side ball joint (lower) i can see the wheel tilted to the outside and there is play when moving the wheel. I will take it in and get it fixed. Thanks guys.