I received this question on uneven tire tread wear:
“Goodyear Endurance tires, rear axle. My left rear tire has wear only on the inside. The right side is also wearing on the inside, but not as badly. The front axle is fine. About 6500 miles on them.“
My answer
As a Tire Design and Forensic Engineer with 50 years of experience, including some design patents, I can tell you that uneven wear, as you are describing, is almost certainly caused by the wheels being out of alignment. You can confirm with a tool you can use yourself.
This is a tire camber gauge.
This tool is available from many on-line companies for less than $12, including Amazon. You could spend a lot more, but for your purposes, I would suggest that would be a waste of money. You can confirm the most likely cause if the camber is more than 1.5° Negative Camber with your tire having the top tilted inward.
Trailer axles are seldom adjustable, so you will need to find a shop that can “bend” the axle or replace it. If BOTH tires are “out of spec,” then it may be easiest to replace the axle.
Roger Marble
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RVT1263
This is a common problem on Dexter TorFlex axles. If the axle isn’t bent, it’s the spindles. Both of my front axle tires wore the inside only. Dexter sent me a new axle under warranty. That was 3 seasons ago. Now my right front tire is wearing the inside only and I suspect another spindle issue.
Thank you, Roger.
Our travel trailer has Goodyear Endurance tires and had terrible inner tire wear on two tires. After replacing tire after tire with only 1000 miles on them, it was determined to be bent axles. We replaced both axles with better Dexter axles, upgraded to Morryide ALLTREK 4000 suspension, Morryde heavy duty shackle and wet bolt kit (bronze bushings) and added 3 Morryde X-Factor cross members to help with the tire wear and it works great now. Worth every penny.
Thank you for tbe discussion and link, Roger. Have a great week and safe travels!
Alignment issues mentioned may also be due to weight, either overloaded or more weight on one side of the trailer.