We live in a town of 1200. The shop is in a smaller town. But he does frame work and alignment as well as things like replacing engines and transmissions and the body work.
And what has he said about your uneven tire wear? (Forget the Firestone place from years ago. They’re often not staffed with the best and brightest).
The tires came on the van. He thinks I should just drive it as is because rotating the tires with the scalloped edges isn’t very feasible. New tires and new alignment when the time comes.
Thanks for this - a confirmation that I may not be either crazy or negligent! I have found tire retailers who offer pre-paid tire rotations as part of their “warranty” usually set those intervals at 7,500 or 8,000 miles. They are pretty picky about that. I took one of these vans to Discount Tire when it was about 500 miles short of the determined interval and explained that I was planning to drive the thing to Arizona. Nothing doing. The same outfit operates there in AZ so, after I drove about 1200 miles, I took it to their shop in the area where we were vfsiting family.
I don’t know if the specs on here are accurate, but, give this a gander at least:
It seems to suggest a wide range of positive(toe in) to negative(toe out) on the rear end, but I generally prefer to run a tad of toe-in front and rear, regardless of front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, or all wheel. You can say I’m a stability freak!
You can of course look up align specs for other years, makes and models of cars as well on it.
I’d be very curious how the OP’s van compares to those specs. Our tire expert @CapriRacer has said to cut the acceptable range in half for a good alignment.
Since that site suggests equal range in and out, ideal would be zero toe in - according to that source, not MOPAR.
My Accord specifies +8’ (minutes arc) in on its rear end, barely 1/10 of one degree, with 8 minutes either way (0-16’ min arc).
7500 to 8000 mile rotations is way to long, 5000 miles is recommended, that is coming from the largest automotive tire manufacturer in the world… Discount Tire employees are beginners, them and quick lube places are where some mechanics start out when they have never been trained, Discount only sells and installs tires with some rotations and flat repairs thrown in, yes they are great at what they do, they just don’t do anything else, they can’t even handle a simple stripped or broken wheel stud…
You can have the alignment corrected now to help slow down the tire wear, however, you can not add the missing rubber back to the tread, but cross rotate the rear tires and check and correct the alignment…
And yes as Texases said CapriRacer said, split the difference on most alignment specs for best tire wear…
Again, pictures are worth a thousand words… post some as already asked for…
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Not sure I know how to add pictures but I can try. Don’t hold your breath! I know there are people my age who have figured this tech stuff out and use it adeptly. I’m just not one of them.
I actually like Discount Tire because they don’t do the other stuff which many shops will try to up-sell. I’ve backed off going there after feeling kind of hustled the last couple times and the refusal to do the tire rotation. If I need other work, I’ll confirm it and stick with my regular guy or one of a couple steering brake and frame shops in nearby larger communities which have good reputations. It is interesting how they are perceived to be the more expensive option and often aren’t.
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Do you have any record of the alignment values the last time it was checked?
If tire with heel-and-toe wear are moved to the front of the vehicle, they will make noise. Then the customer returns the next day making accusations of the tech causing damage to the vehicle. The tire store then must rotate the tires back to the original positions.
When they see wear patterns in the tread, it is too late to perform a tire rotation. Live with the tire wear pattern or buy new tires and maintain them properly.
Grand Caravans have one piece rear axles, unlikely to need adjustment or straightening.
I know that one exists in the shop’s computer but I don’t have a copy available.
I understand the noise. I once had a Ford Escape (a 2 wheel drive model) that came to me with these gnarly looking all terrain tires. They got noiser and noisier. Turns out, even though they were wearing evenly as to tread depth, the toe was out of adjustment. It called for 1/8" whichever direction and was 1/8" inch the other way. It chewed up the all terrain tread and it was horribly noisy. I ended up getting a different pair of tires and switching fronts to back and putting the new ones on the front. (Yes, I’m aware that is something of a no-no.)
You’re right about that solid rear axle It’s like a square tube, side to side.
I have to respectfully disagree, I have many many times taken (unidirectional/non directional/symmetrical, and asymmetrical)(not directional) tires with heal/toe wear, feathering/cupping and crossed them side to side on the rear and it will cause it to heal/toe/feather wear the other way which will start to smooth them out on there way to feathering the other way again, I have taken tires designs that are known for massive feathering/cupping and cross rotate them to keep the noise down and to make them last longer… Too many mechanics are to scared to think outside the box when rotating tires…
Very true, you do not want to rotate tires like this to the front, but they can be, as long as non directional tires, rotated side to side… Asymmetrical can be done the same way
Again, you are not adding rubber back, simply smoothing the edge of the tread back out, just now worn on the edge…
A child’s seesaw going from being down on one side to the other side down will be flat at the middle point, same as heal/toe wear…
The flange the hub bearing bolts to is not, that is wear the shim goes, between the flange and the hub…
I appreciate folks offering up suggestions. It is why I come here. More than once, we have solved mysteries.
The current issue is really beginning to show and I have not talked with anyone other than Car Talk Community members for about a year. I have a two of these vans and put a pair of tires on the 05. I’m noticing the pattern starting to develop on the rear tires. They were on the front and this is the vehicle that Discount Tire decined to rotate. My alignment shop guy said, several mohts later, that he did not see any advantage in rotating the current tires. That is when I bought the ones now on the front.
The '13 is a different vehicle in many respects and the tires on the back are the ones with the most pronounced example. I’m going to attempt photos. At the moment, just driving as is sums up my plan. I don’t think wear patters resolve with rotation though I wonder if a side to side swap, as suggested by one of the participants in this discussion, might at least help level out the higher parts of the tires.
Seems unlikely. You might be able to gain some improvement by asking your shop if remounting the tires on the rim w/the other orientation would help.
i do not know much about your mini van, but if it has a dead axle, the camber of the axle has been preset and the tires are angled inward at the top and outward at the bottom. this creates a camber on the tire which will wear the inner tread faster than the outer tread. Our 2020 Connect has this but I don’t consider it to be a problem. In fact, next month we’ll be installing a set of camber plate which will give the rear wheels/tire more camber or approx 1.5 degrees more of camber. if your tires are showing sign or wear on both the inner and outer edge, this could mean that the tires are not load rated for your van… check the door jam as to see what load rating you need for your van. often you can locate tires with a higher load rating than what the door jam lists. IE if the door jam says 95 load rated, try to locate a set of tires with a load rating or 98 or better or in some cases if your tire doesn’t have a load rating and used the letter rating… the current tire could say “C” when you actually needed the “D” or even “E” rated tires.
Ah … Mmmm… Not exactly.
These would be P type tires and they come in Standard Load and Extra Load. More importantly, it’s the inflation pressure that is important. The Load Range merely allows you to not exceed the tires inflation limitations.
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Poor balance can cause cupping. Some tires are difficult to balance. Some years ago my company had a contract to service Nortron computerized wheel balancers. The least significant digit of location and weight was always constrained to read zero for a quick and usually adequate balance. Keeping the balance start button pressed during the spin enabled the least significant digits for more accuracy. In my experience, some sets of tires were badly in need of balance every few thousands of miles, but other sets stayed in balance through their lifetime.