Tire Wear – Cupping of front tires

Ever noticed that when you drive your rig you hear a woomp, woomp, woomp, woomp sound coming from the front end? Ever notice that the steering seems to be very loose? Have you seen the tires on the front of your rig start to have high spots that go across the width of the tire? like the picture above Chances are that you need to have your caster adjusted.

Why would you need your Caster adjusted?

Chances are great that your rig has had a lift but either did not have the front control arms adjusted or the lift was large enough that the stock arms could no longer be adjusted to account for the lift. Have a look at the control arms below, they are shown in blue.

The correct caster should be at a 96 degree angle. What happens when you lift your rig and don’t adjust the arms is that the angle then becomes closer to 90 degrees where the axle is no longer pulling the tire from the bottom but pushing it from the top and bottom and this is what helps cause the premature tire wear.

The best way to correct this is to purchase aftermarket control arms that can be adjusted. See the picture just above this and you will see that the stock are not adjustable by themselves where the ones above have threads in them where they can be lengthened or shortened to set the correct angle as needed.

There are many more things to look at when talking about suspension but this is the first thing I look at when I see tires that wear incorrectly and most of the time, the rig has a lift with the stock arms, which is a factor in the wear pattern of the tire.