2012 Ram 3500HD DRW Tire Wear

[Montana Sky]

Is anyone else having irregular tire wear on their Ram 3500 DRW? I have almost 18,000 miles on the truck and will probably need new tires by 20k. The front tires are wearing horribly on the outside/inside edges. Takes approx. 3200 miles to wear them down beyond making them smooth again with rotation. The truck has the OEM tires on it as well. I took the truck to the shop last week to have alignment checked - the dealer said there is no adjustments for this and stated that I either needed to rotate every 3k miles or less depending on wear, or needed to get rid of the all terrain tires and go with a highway tire with rounded shoulders. The mechanic strongly recommended the new tires as the solid 1 piece axle on the front will continue to create irregular tire wear on the current tires. I also am experiencing severe brake squealing during braking - does not matter speed or how fast/slow I am going. They just squeal horribly. Dealer also stated that the new "harder metal" brakes are know for squealing and there is no solution to correct this issue. Anyone else noticing this?? I have to admit that I find it rather embarrassing to pull up to a red light and hear my brand new $62k truck squeal so loudly. Any insight or suggestions would be much appreciated. Otherwise, I see a new truck in my future as having to buy new tires every 18/20k miles is not going to be an option I accept.

[Rainer]

Wearing the outside and inside edges of a tire normally indicates under-inflation. I have a Ford diesel and the tire inflation is 80 psi. I can't imagine your would be any less.

Your dealer doesn't seem to aggressive in finding solutions for your problems, so it may be time to look for another dealer, or even an independent tire/brake shop.

[cjohnson]

I have a 2011 Dodge 4WD 3500 Dually with General Ameritrac tires (original equip). Presently 28K+ Run 70 in front and rear if not towing.
70 front 80 in rear pulling Monty. Wear has been very even, I do rotate at every 5K.

[Krease]

The stock general tires are very soft. I have 35k on mine, and two of the 6 are down the the wear bars, and the other 4 aren't far behind. I run 70psi all around. I see some new michelins in the near future for me.

[bethandkevin]

Find an independent alignment shop that aligns road tractors w/straight axles. If the alignment is off, they can bend the axle accordingly to correct camber, which a dealer would not be able to do. Does your truck have a steering stabilizer? It seems someone on here started a thread related to that issue. As for the squealing brakes, it is never normal. Ceramic brakes are prone to squealing, they also wear the rotors heavily. I've use a brand called Performance Friction on police Tahoe's, Impala's and on my truck as well. They're a carbon fiber/semi-metallic combination. I've never had a squealing issue. The best thing I like about them-the hotter they get, the better they bite. Go to their website to find a distributor near you.

[Sierra 117]

I run my tires at 70 psi front and 75 to 80 psi rear. Got 50,000 miles on the OEM Ameritrac. they were still legal, but were loosing gripping ability on wet surfaces, so I replaced them. The tires were rotated once, but probably didn't need it. It sounds like something is not right with your truck.

[Montana Sky]

Thanks for all the quick responses. I run the tires at 70 psi up front and 65 psi in the rear per the window sticker. The rear tires were wearing very well until I noticed how bad the front ones were. Therefore I flipped the front two with the right rear (where most of the power is) and moved the right rear to the front. The amount of shake/vibration that comes from the right rear can almost make a person ill at highway speeds. I will have to look into different brake pads to see if that helps the squealing. As for the front axle - will have to do some additional research... I priced out new Micheline LTX M/S's for my rig as they seem to be more of a highway tire than an all terrain. Still cost on those was almost $1400 after install, tax, and warranty from Discount Tire. Hoping they will be running a 4th of July sale and I can get that price down a bit as these tires are pretty much useless now. Starting to think that I should have never left the Chevy Silverado family of 1 ton trucks - never had so many issues with my Chevy's as I do/had with the last two Ram's.

[bigmurf]

I have a 04 DRW 4 WD. I run 60 psi in the front and 50 psi in the rear. 3100 lbs of pin weight.

[bigred715]

Is that running empty? That seems low air pressure even for a dually.

[oldelmer1]

My door sticker on my 2011 says 70 front & 65 rear for heavy loads. I run 65 in front & 65 in rear. I have almost 19K miles and my tires look still new.

Remember, the dealer will only do factory settings on a front end alignment, I'd find an independent shop and have them look at it.

[bigmurf]

quote:Originally posted by bigred715

Is that running empty? That seems low air pressure even for a dually.

Loaded or empty for 190,000 miles now. The trailer only adds 50 lbs to the front axle.

[Devildog]

I run 70 front and 65 rear. I am at 27,000 miles and front tires are rounding off on the outside corner. For first 22,000 miles I only ran 65 in the front unless I was towing. I think that was too little air. Alignment checked and tires balanced at independent shopiI trust at 22,000. Stated in their experience, would go through a couple of sets of front tires before the rears need to be replaced. Currently, rears look brand new.
Look at the tires on a HDT. They go through fronts faster than rears. I am going to have my fronts dismounted from the rim and turned around, to extend the wear. And they are the General Ameritracs.

[sreigle]

Dave, as you know, mine is a 2007 and is not a dually. But I think the front-end may be the same, although mine is a 4x4.

Mine came with BFG Rugged Trail T/A. The original tires went almost 70k miles with no unusual wear on the tread. I replaced with the same model tires and these have 30k to 35k and are wearing fine. I have only once rotated the tires on this truck. I probably should do it occasionally but haven't bothered. The tires are doing fine.

There is something wrong on yours. If you are not overinflating them and not taking curves at the edge of adhesion all the time then something is wrong.

As for the brakes. Mine do squeal. I have a high pitch hearing loss and do not hear it but Vicki tells me it does it. I agree with the dealer who said the newer, longer lasting, better stopping pads tend to squeal more than the softer ones that don't last as long or wear as well or stop as well. I'd like to see someone solve that situation, though.

I run the front tires at 50 psi. The rear ones I run at 80 when towing and most of the time when not towing. When we're doing those washboardy back roads in our exploring, sometimes I drop the rear tires to 50 psi or even 45.

Dave, tires made of a better riding, softer compound, will wear out more quickly but they should wear out evenly across the tread. Yours don't. Something is wrong.

[Ishler]

Mine is not a dually but I noticed some initial tire wear, the dealer said the axle alignment was wrong and had to install an adjustable ball joint to correct it.

[Montana Sky]

I agree with all of you -- something is wrong. I was able to get 78,600 miles out of my 2011 Ram 3500 SRW before needing to replace the tires on that truck. I realize that the SRW and DRW have different characteristics, but this is crazy. I have an appointment at an alignment shop for next week. I'll be interested to see what they find...

[sreigle]

Dave, without seeing the actual wear pattern it's hard to know but it almost sounds to me like a balance problem. If the wheels were balanced off the truck and have not thrown off any weights then that's not it. But if they balanced the wheels while on the truck, then your balance is likely off since you moved the tires. Balancing on the truck does a superior job of balancing but I don't even know whether they still balance that way these days. Alignment or balancing, I'd guess.

[mobil]

Still have oem tires at 48,000 mi. Even wear all around, 70psi front, 65psi rear. Rotated every 5,000 mi. Will have Michelins put on at 50,000.

[clarkandsheila]

The amount of shake/vibration that comes from the right rear can almost make a person ill at highway speeds.
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Shake/vibration says there is a balance problem usually. There can be other causes such as out of round tires or wheels. Also bad shocks can with an out of balance wheel cause cupping wear of the tire which is hard to deal with and will produce a thumping.

As pointed out you need to get to a shop that can deal with this properly.

[Montana Sky]

Well $1700 later I now have a new set of Michelin LTX M/S on the truck. I was also able to find a Ram dealership in the area that was able to do an alignment on the truck. The alignment was out (tech claimed it was just past what would be considered within spec). So now the alignment is done, new tires are on truck, and truck still shakes horribly. Back to dealership I went. Now the shop is ordering a new drive shaft, hanger bearing, and rear pinion seals as the vibration is caused by the drive shaft being out of balance. FUNNY PART or SAD PART - the exact same thing happened to my 2011 Ram 3500HD Single Rear Wheel last fall. All the drive line issues I had with my 2011 SRW was half the reason I dumped the it and went with the 2012 DRW. Seems to me that Ram has a design flaw on the 2011 and 2012 Ram 3500HD's... Naturally Ram's customer service hotline states that they will not refund the $1700 I paid for new tires at 19,550 miles as "alignment" is the owners responsibility and irregular tire wear caused by improper maintenance of alignment is also the owners problem. They claimed this even after I provided 4 receipts from different Ram dealers stating that there was nothing that could be to correct the problem. I guess I will find out in the next three to four months if the alignment fixes the problem or not as I now have new tires, a current alignment, and as of next week; new drive shaft, hanger bearings and rear pinion seals....