K03 wear issue - bad alignment, suspension issue, or tire?

[reds10]

Your pictures show Offset Lug wear, meaning one lug is good, next one is worn. This is also evident in the inboard to outboard stagger of the wear pattern in your 3rd pic. If this was a Toe or Camber, the entire inner or outer edge would be worn off evenly. This condition is unfortunately a characteristic of heavy lug tires. Tire manufacturers recommend regular tire rotation using a 4-point rotation ( tire goes through all 4 positions ) done at regular intervals. We ran KO3's on a Wrangler, rotated every 10k km with the oil change. Without it we got the same wear. I started rotating tires every 10000KM on every truck or SUV the wife and I have driven. Never had an issue since - 20 years and going. You state 22000 Miles, should have been rotated 3 times by now. Have you done any rotations?

This was the 4th rotation. so every 5-6k miles

Sponsored

 

[reds10]

I got the howl at about 20,000. I’ll have to take a closer look at my tread to see if it’s consistent with yours. Crazy how they go from not bad to terribly loud and annoying almost overnight.

i'm shocked at how bad cupped they got. I wouldn't have noticed it if not for the rotation and dirt pattern on the tires in a parking lot.

The howl came on loud and strong during a 4k mile road trip. by the time i got home i was considering replacing the tires due to how many people said they got loud after some wear.

i'm wondering if everyone isn't experiencing some cupping issues on the tires that's creating the howl.

the rotation tamed the sound A LOT. although i know its just because the tires that are the problem are now behind me instead of in front where it's more noticeable.

 

[Pic-N-Stick]

Mine howl at 8k with mild cupping. I will replace them with something that is quieter, lighter weight and corners/brakes better but still has decent offroad capabilities. Both the Continental TerrainContact A/T2 and Goodyear Outbound A/T are new models supposed to be releasing S/L 285/70R17's next year. The Goodyear already has an LT285/70R17 but weighs 59 pounds and surely a stiffer ride than an S/L.

 

[Lion77]

I’m curious as to your thoughts on this wear issue on the stock k03 tires. I just came back from a long road trip and the tires became extremely loud, like deafeningly loud and now I know why.

I’ve rotated them regularly (this is the 4th time) and they are just now at 22,000 miles.

what you see is the worst of the two front tires which have now been moved to the rear. The larger inner lugs are wore down ~1/8”+ and don’t even touch the pavement anymore being on the rear as you can see from the lack of dirt on the tread. the skinner inner lugs look to be wearing completely normal though! Maybe because they have more support running towards the the center of the tire?

The truck was just in the shop last week for an oil changeand they inspected the alignment and didn’t note any issue, so I feel less strong about that possibility. Also, I’ve never seen this type of issue from alignment where the wear is only effecting one size of tread lug, but I suppose anything is possible.

I’m leaning toward taking it back to the shop and having them check all the suspension components.

I’ve been looking at new tires thinking I wanted to try something different, and now I feel like this one tire is pretty much shot but I’ve got to get the issue fixed before doing anything new.

For what it’s worth I drive fairly mild mannered and 75 to 80% of my miles is highway. And of that I’ve towed 3,500 lbs about 1,500 miles I’m guessing.

It’s really hard to get good pics of the issue so I hope it comes through well enough.

Mine look the same at 28k miles. Bone stock suspension, but I got lazy and only rotated every 10k miles so expected more feathering.

That wear pattern isnt cupping like most people think. Cupping is random divets in the tread around the tire like you scooped out spots with a spoon and is from tires with balancing issues or a bad strut (tire constantly bouncing against pavement due to lack of damping from a blown strut).

Feathering is consistent uniform wear typically on the inside edge of the tire at the back edge of each tread or every other tread (angled wear) and every tire ive owned has had some form of Feathering. My road cars with all seasons do it too but its very minor and barely noticeable on all seasons and stiffer suspension of road cars.

Truck does it more because of the significant change in Camber angle as truck leans into corners. Doesn't help that I drive mine like a sports car and was lazy on rotation either. Also the large gaps in AT tread blocks and non-uniform tread block widths make this a common occurrence.

I drive on a lot of twisty roads too, if I did mostly highway straight line cruising then I would expect less feathering. KO3s seem more prone to it also because of tread blocks that feather dont extend out as far, so they tend to wear more at the outer edge on the smaller tread blocks than say an on road focused AT tire would.

Its normal.

 

[Lion77]

Note that feathering isnt always caused by improper toe angles, geometry of performance vehicle suspensions often cause more feathering than what you would see on a daily driver.

Sponsored