What causes trailer tires to wear like this?

These tires have about 4000 miles on them. They were on the left side of a 10k trailer with two torsion axles. My first thought was that the toe was jacked but (in my experience) that should show some wear on both sides of the trailer as they try to even out, right? I did a quick check of toe with a straightedge and they seem OK. Camber is the same on both sides.

The inside of the tread is gone, almost wearing through to the steel belts. The outside doesn't look like its been touched. I also stopped periodically and lay my hand on the tread and it wasn't hot. Wasn't even much warmer than ambient temp.

Here is what I did for now... I rotated the tires left to right and replaced the worst one with the spare. I guess if the swapped tires start wearing like these did, I know its the axle. If they don't, I know its a faulty tire or something.

This one shows major cupping.

This one is just toast.

Do you do a lot of real tight backing?

Wheel bearings?

I had a set of tires do this, I went to a trailer specific tire and it went away.

Nicksta43: not really. I basically drove it 2000 miles at about 10k lbs, did a couple backups to unload, then drove it 2000 miles back at about 7.5K lbs.

Woody: Wheel bearings were done right before the trip. They're tight and quiet.

aussiesmg wrote: I had a set of tires do this, I went to a trailer specific tire and it went away.

These are trailer tires. They say "trailer use only" right on the sidewall.

I had to cut a tandem axle trailer hard to the left to park it at the shop. We were lucky to get 5k out of a set. My boss thought it was because of how we had to back it into the lot. You could really see them being dragged sideways. I always thought it had a bent axle or mounts because I could see it walking sideways behind the truck never could talk him into getting it looked at though. This was pulling a Bobcat 430 mini excavator.

have you overloaded the axles then?

My replacement tires have a very square profile while yours have a rounder contact patch, I wonder if that contributes

BTW my wear looked exactly like yours.

aussiesmg wrote: have you overloaded the axles then?

Not to my knowledge. Certainly shouldn't have. Dry weight of the trailer is 3500. I had a 2011 Hyundai Sonata in it that was full of boxes, plus a large toolbox that I estimated at around 1000 lbs. Even if the Sonata was weighed down to 5000 lbs that comes out to around 9500. The axles are rated at 5200 each.

All tires were at 65 psi, trailer was level, towed like a dream.

Torsion axle's are kind of like a semi trailing arm correct? Could however it's attached to the torsion bar be bad? Bushing or something, not to familiar with how those are attached.

yes nicksta. The axle beam is bolted to the frame, then the little trailing arm is allowed to twist in the beam - either by embedding it in a viscous material for lighter axles or using steel torsion rods for heavier axles. I thought maybe a big pothole or impact may have bent the trailing arm or the spindle, but on my axles the trailing part is a massive steel forging.

Like this:

Or this:

my .02

http://www.taskmasterproducts.com/acatalog/TireWearGuide.pdf

fasted58 wrote: my .02 http://www.taskmasterproducts.com/acatalog/TireWearGuide.pdf

Well, I'll take that as a possibility that I overloaded the axles... but why just the left side and not the right? The car and the toolbox were centered in the trailer, and I can't imagine one side being more than about 100lbs different.

I laugh at massive. (In a nice way) My old trailer with the same axles managed to bend axles, bend the spindle, break spindles off, bend torsion bars and generally abuse everything. In my situation, i had two 2000 pound axles on a 4000 pound trailer. If anything was uneven, too much weight was on one axle. If I hit a speed bump, too much weight on one axle. A full tank of diesel in the truck would shift too much weight to the front axle!

My solution was to swap to two 5000 pound axles designed for construction trailers. They were much, much heavier duty than the torsion-beam axles and solved the problem.

I guess I'll run it on this next leg like it is (with the rotated tires) and see if the same wear shows up on the undamaged tires. If it does, I know its an axle issue. If it doesn't, I'll replace the damaged tires and call it a mystery. This next leg of my move will have a modest weight - two mattresses, one box spring, several boxes of clothing, and a 96 impala SS. That sounds like about a 5000 lb load so GTW should be around 8500.

They are Carlisle tires which aren't the greatest. I've had nothing but trouble with them but that's what came with the trailer.

In my experience, torsion axles don't like to run at max load. Our SCCA trailer has the same problem and eats tires like mad.

Bent axle and or miss loaded. Torsion axled trailers need to be level when loaded. If not one axle takes all the weight as theres no load balancer between the two axles like in the typical slipper spring with see/saw in the middle.

Toyman01 wrote: In my experience, torsion axles don't like to run at max load. Our SCCA trailer has the same problem and eats tires like mad.

You seen how much crap is packed in that trailer? Man, it's full of cones and cones are HEAVY.

44Dwarf wrote: Bent axle and or miss loaded. Torsion axled trailers need to be level when loaded. If not one axle takes all the weight as theres no load balancer between the two axles like in the typical slipper spring with see/saw in the middle.

I will agree on the bent axle. The trailer was dead nuts level on the tow vehicle with the WD hitch torqued on. I mean level. In my driveway there was less than 1/8" difference from frame to ground between front and back. And my problem was that both left tires wore this way. I would understand if just the front or rear tires took all the wear but it was just one side.

...But... if an axle was bent, my theory says this: let's say the left wheels were toed out 1/4". When towing, wouldn't the trailer crab and equalize the toe on each side? For instance, if you adjust the left tie rod on your car to have 1/4" toe out on the left, in order to drive straight you would have to hold the steering wheel to the right and each tire would be angled out 1/16" from the centerline. The net result is that you would see similar wear on both sides.

Right??? Or not???

curtis73 wrote: ...But... if an axle was bent, my theory says this: let's say the left wheels were toed out 1/4". When towing, wouldn't the trailer crab and equalize the toe on each side? For instance, if you adjust the left tie rod on your car to have 1/4" toe out on the left, in order to drive straight you would have to hold the steering wheel to the right and each tire would be angled out 1/16" from the centerline. The net result is that you would see similar wear on both sides. Right??? Or not???

Not necessarily. If the right side wheels had a higher load, they will track straight and drag the left wheels.

That may not be the case. I can't remember fromt the last time I looked at a vehicle dynamics textbook, but I know with articulated vehicles, there's some interesting stuff going on in the rear with the force pulling from the extreme front. I don't think the "self-centering" effect of toe is quite as prominent. Which would, actually, explain your problem. Bent axle.

You said what the load rating of the axles is- what's the load rating of the tires? What size were they? What is their maximum pressure rating?

The weird thing about the axle theory is that the wear involved both tires on the same side. Are both axles bent equally? Doesn't sound right.

I don't believe the problem is your axles. I think it's your tires. They look over inflated to me.

You had a 25% lighter load in one direction. You should have had 2 different tire pressures.

10K load is pushing the rating on all but the strongest trailer tires. If they were a little over loaded and a little over inflated, you'd have wear on the inside edge. Since they are working in pairs, as soon as the first tire starts wearing, the second one is exposed to greater stresses (since it is now bigger than the first). They both wore each other out simultaneously on the inside edge.

SVreX wrote: You said what the load rating of the axles is- what's the load rating of the tires? What size were they? What is their maximum pressure rating?

Each tire is a 225/75-15, load range D (except the spare which is an E-range of the same size) They are all rated for 2540 lbs each. Max psi is 65 (except the spare E-range which is max 80)

The weird thing about the axle theory is that the wear involved both tires on the same side. Are both axles bent equally? Doesn't sound right.

I agree. I suppose the axles could have been equally affected by an impact, but rare indeed.

I don't believe the problem is your axles. I think it's your tires. They look over inflated to me.

Again, agree. They look overinflated but both were at 65 psi for the whole trip, start to finish.

10K load is pushing the rating on all but the strongest trailer tires. If they were a little over loaded and a little over inflated, you'd have wear on the inside edge. Since they are working in pairs, as soon as the first tire starts wearing, the second one is exposed to greater stresses (since it is now bigger than the first). They both wore each other out simultaneously on the inside edge.

I buy that explanation... except I can't imagine that they were overloaded, and I know they weren't overinflated. I will concede that Carlisle tires are potentially crap and those are what was on the left side. The right side had Goodyear Marathons.

SVreX wrote: You had a 25% lighter load in one direction. You should have had 2 different tire pressures.

I disagree with that. With vehicle tires, yes. With trailer tires, not really. I always run max psi in trailer tires because of their design. If I were running empty I might drop them to 40 psi, but the difference between 7500 and 10k on trailer tires might affect treadwear on the edges vs. the center, but not cause this type of wear.