Tire help for 2001

[gary mendelow]

hi guys and gals, i am looking for some help with tires and wear.

i have a 2001 sporttrac with 177 thousand miles..i ran the first set of tires for about 65 thousand and they had some wear on the inside. if anything, the truck has been great, but the front end has always sucked in my opinion...when i bought it i had to get a few allignments right out of the box and then i have replace tie rods and ball joints..i have never replaced the struts or shocks..



the second set of tires was another factory set of new takeoffs...i wanted to get new original rims as mine were getting some of that oxidation peeling and i wanted to keep the truck nice..

the set also ran 65000 miles and still head tread left but the insides were wearing.



so at 136000 i bought another set of wranglers, these were the SR-a 50000 miles tires..

they are wearing heavily on the inside and last night on my way back from philly,(live in cleveland) i had a high speed blowout in the rear (luckily) and the tire just separated on the sidewall..needless to say it is time to get the other 3 sr-a's off!!!



so the questions are..has any had these types of tire wear issues..i do rotate about every 6 to 10 thousand and what is the best highway type tire (with some thought to price/value) that i can get that will wear well and give me as quiet a ride as possible in my old truck!



i called costco and they have a michilen that they thought would be great..they would be about 750 out the door and they would be rated for 65000 miles...



any help and thoughts as always would be greatly appreciated.

 

[H D]

Hopefully the Michelin's they are recommending are the LTX M/S2. They are great tires and we had them on my wife's Tahoe. They barely seemed to wear and rode very well.



You may need to get the camber adjustment kit if you haven't already. With as many times you've had the alignment serviced, I'd assume you already do, though.



You should really replace the shocks.

 

[EddieS'04]

Get rid of the oem style shocks. Use upgraded shocks. Have caster camber wasshers instaalled . Have the alighnment done to prefered specks. Not within tolerence.

Most GY wrangler tires do not do well on our '01 to '05 tracs.

These are Items that our tracs need. For the best tire wear and ride and control performance.

 

[swshawaii]

The two most important things for safety and ride are tires and shocks, IMO.

177K OEM shocks with Goodyear Wrangler's is like an accident waiting to happen.

For tire and shock recommendations there are countless opinions. Research time.

 

[Bo Loo]

I just bought new tires - got them from Walmart. But, they are 20" and Walmart didn't have the equipment to install them. I took them to a local shop and the guy there asked me how much I paid. I told him and he said he could have beaten the price. I told him I checked their website and there was nothing within $100. He told me to always call them, as they can beat any price from anybody.



So, I'd recommend the same to you. Get a price and call around to see who can beat it.

 

[Richard L]

If your tires are wearing on the inside edge of the tread it sounds like you have a camber issue. Early Sport Tracs did not have adjustable camber, so over time the torsion bar suspension would relax a bit, lower the truck and cause the wheels to lean in at the top....not so much that you would notice, but enough to cause wear at the inside edges of the tread.



To correct the camber you will need to have the original camber bolts replaced with adjustable camber bolts. Any good front-end alignment shop should know this and if you have never had the adjustable camber bolts installed in the 177K miles, I'm pretty sure who ever was doing your front-end alignments is incompetent.



The adjustable camber bolts will cost from $50 to $100 extra over the price of your front-end alignment, but it's the only way you are going to get your camber problem solved.



Get your front-end aligned with the new camber bolts before you worry about what tires you need. Also, tread separation on the rear tire was probably caused by under-inflation....that was part of the issue with the original Firestone AT tires that came on the Sport Tracs and Explorers and resulted in many lawsuits against Ford and Firestone, and caused Ford to break business ties with Firestone. Most folks here keep their tires inflated to 32-35 psi



...Rich

 

[mike burns 3]

pressure pressure very important and very under serviced



I have the LTX M/S tires on my ST and they have been great. I don't take them to the limit and change about every 50-60K. I have tried some of the "off" brands but always come back to Michelin. Remember that a higher mileage rated tire may also be "harder" and traction suffer because of it. Although the M/S is a mud/snow tire I still put dedicated snow tires on in the winter. I can tell a HUGE difference in the snow. Ice, well nothing works that good.



Last set I did Tirerack.com to Midas (Tirerack select installer) and everything worked good.



Truck is doing good but noticed I'm developing a rust hole under the cladding. Its from the inside out so nothing I can really do without spending more than the truck is worth. Welcome to New England.