Question about road noise and outer side wall wear. Pirelli ATR

[johnnutah22]

I put Pirelli Scorpion ATR 265 65r 17's on a 2006 explorer V8 xlt 4x4. After about 25k the road noise increased dramatically. I keep them at 34psi and have rotated them and had an alignment done with no effect. They are showing outer side wall tread wear especially in front. Could this be a result of low tire pressure or worn shocks? I noticed that the front end bottoms out over large speed bumps as well and it has always been very "bouncy" over smaller ones. I looked for answers here first so I apologize if i missed a posting that answers this. Thank you.

 

[jrford]

245/65R-17's leaves 10mm between the tire sidewall and the steering knuckle at the top just below the ball joint.

I figured that unless I got some spacers 255/65 would not fit, how did you get 265's on?
Are you running spacers or offset rims?

 

[Anime]

Low tire pressure will typically give tread wear on both the inside and outside tread surfaces.

Bad shocks will give patchy tire wear or show up in the form of a pattern around the tread.


Outer tread/shoulder wear is usually the result of an alignment issue.

Too much positive camber, not enough toe-in, or even the wrong caster.


Also, hard cornering, or hard driving with a "normal" alignment will give more outer wear.

A performance alignment with negative camber to offset the wear caused by hard cornering will usually give more even tire wear.

New shocks, especially of the performance variety (Bilstein, KYB Monomax, KYB Gas-a-just), are a good idea anyway, though. They give a lot more control to the suspension and can offer some benefit in reducing the body roll that causes the outer tire to scrub so hard it rolls over onto the sidewall.

You may also want to run slightly higher tire pressure as well.

 

[johnnutah22]

Thank you very much. I'm learning as I go with this.