Tires wearing badly

DanSees

My tires on my 2021 320S Boondock are wearing badly on the inside of each tire. I have the factory tires for the boondock edition I have about 20K miles on these tires. Not sure exactly because I purchased it used. I have put 15K miles on it. Is there any kind of allignment possible on these Dexter axles? I am not overloaded & they seem to be wearing the same on both sides. I expect I may get one more season out of these tires before replacing. Which is not bad if you look at time in service. My camper went in service in Aug of 2020 & the date code is May or June of 2020. Not exactly sure , can't remember & I'm not near my camper at the moment. Possibly even a warranty issue? If this falls under structure. 3 year warranty & transferred to second owner, the 1 year warranty on everything else is not transferred.

tabiphile

Inside wear suggests an axle alignment issue. It's not tire pressure or balance.
Most RV shops are not able to sort that. You might have better luck with a trailer shop. 
At 20K miles, you are due for tires regardless but before you head down that path, the axle needs to be sorted out. 
There is one thing that you can do on your own. Inside tire wear can result from improperly pre-loaded wheel bearings. Many mechanics think that they have the golden touch to properly torque the castellated nut. Good mechanics use a torque wrench to make sure that the bearings are properly loaded. 
Since there are quite a few miles on your rig, and since you lack service history, it is possible that your bearings are not properly tightened, and it is also possible that the bearings have been damaged and worn due to neglect.
When buying a used rig regardless of the miles, the new owner should pull both wheels to check the integrity of the bearings and to also check the condition of the brakes. 

If the bearings are good, then alignment is the problem. You should contact Dexter if that is the case. They have been known to replace axles to address that issue. 

DanSees

tabiphile said:

Inside wear suggests an axle alignment issue. It's not tire pressure or balance.
Most RV shops are not able to sort that. You might have better luck with a trailer shop. 
At 20K miles, you are due for tires regardless but before you head down that path, the axle needs to be sorted out. 
There is one thing that you can do on your own. Inside tire wear can result from improperly pre-loaded wheel bearings. Many mechanics think that they have the golden touch to properly torque the castellated nut. Good mechanics use a torque wrench to make sure that the bearings are properly loaded. 
Since there are quite a few miles on your rig, and since you lack service history, it is possible that your bearings are not properly tightened, and it is also possible that the bearings have been damaged and worn due to neglect.
When buying a used rig regardless of the miles, the new owner should pull both wheels to check the integrity of the bearings and to also check the condition of the brakes. 

If the bearings are good, then alignment is the problem. You should contact Dexter if that is the case. They have been known to replace axles to address that issue. 

I agree with all the above. I have serviced the axles & I used Dexters instructions in Sept of this year. Not sure of prior service & I noticed the tire wear when I pulled them off to service the bearings. I did not notice any abnormalities when I removed them other than the uneven wear. I contacted NuCamp after I wrote this post & they told me to contact Dexter, Which I just did. We will see what they tell me. 

manyman297

I know some people here and on the FB Nucamp owner’s group have had issues with inside wear and the cause was a manufacturer defect. Just something to search for either here or on FB.

rh5555

Check out these posts:

https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/11325/axle-camber-seems-excessive/p1

DanSees

Dexter denied my warranty claim due to not being the original owner. I read some of the other posts with bad tire wear & off camber settings. My wear is nowhere as bad as any of these. Also my original post indicated inside wear, it should have read outside wear. I can easily get another 5K out of my tires without getting down to the wear marks where the tire is worn. 
I checked the date code on my tires, they were manufactured 2019, Which is the 20th week of 2019. I have a trip from NC to TX & back scheduled for March. Next trip after that will be in July. My tires will be 4+ years old with 25-30K miles on them I do believe I will be changing them before my July trip. 
Thanks for all your suggestions & comments

tabiphile

Outside wear is still not tire balance or. It is different than inside wear, but still attributable to alignment. Your conclusion about tire life is spot on. As long as the bearings are good, the tires are safe, that amount of miles is perfectly reasonable.

DanSees

tabiphile said:

Outside wear is still not tire balance or. It is different than inside wear, but still attributable to alignment. Your conclusion about tire life is spot on. As long as the bearings are good, the tires are safe, that amount of miles is perfectly reasonable.

Definetly not a balance issue. Allignment is what causes this. Is there anything that can be done to correct it though? I would have thought Dexter would have at least told me what needed to done to correct this. Axle replacement is my guess. My guess is they did'nt even read my issue. Who ever got the complaint looked at the first box where it asks if this trailer was purchased new or used & denied claim without any suggestions due to second owner.  

Oh well if I can 25K & 4-5 years out the tires. I just hope what ever I replace these tires with, I still get this much use out of.  I would like to go with the Goodyear Endurance. I wish Goodyear made it in a more rugged tread. I have them on my car hauler & have towed it across county a few times with no abnormal wear & it has Dexter Axles also.

pak

On my 2017 cs-s, the tires were worn after about 20k miles. These were the original tires and I was not impressed with them at all. I wondered if it was premature wear due to axle alignment but have not checked that out as yet.

manyman297

Outside wear is more concerning…like you have positive camber somehow but I believe most trailers have 0 degrees of camber. Maybe others here know but I don’t even know if there’s a way to align the wheels. 

DM159

2022 TAB400 right (passenger) tire showing excessive "toe in" wear from day one.  No tread remaining on the outboard portion of the tire.  Looks like, to be safe I will put on a new tire to start this season of travel.  Maybe 15000 miles on the trailer.  The left (driver) tire is like new.    

Denny16

Sounds like you might have the right (passenger) side of the trailer overloaded, or the load not balanced from side to side.  With more weight on one side of the axle than the other, the camber is forced out as the pressure on the axle pushes down on the tire, causing excessive inside wear on the one side.  I am not an expert on this, but this could be a possible cause for one side wearing more than the other.
cheers

DanSees

So I am back from a 9000 mile trip to TX back to NC. I haven't added up how many of those miles were towing yet. However I would suspect about 7500 miles added to the T@b. I notice no additional wear on the outbd tread. I am surprised, because I would have thought I'd be down close to bald on the outer edge of the tread. One thing I did different is I moved my AGM battery from the front tongue to 2 lithium batteries in the back in front of the Air8. I also almost always had a full tank of fresh water on board, because we were boondocking quite a bit.  Did the additional weight in the back & lack of weight on the tongue help with the allignment of the axel? I have no idea. I am going to keep an eye on them & continue on for the summer. I will be replacing by next year no matter what, due to age. Thanks for all the comments.

DM159

Denny16 - if our 2022 TAB400 would have an unbalanced load - it would be on the "driver" side because of the black, gray and 1/2 of the fresh water tanks.  It looks like the interior cabinets and bath could balance each other too. 

Horigan

Sounds like a defective axle.