Community Forums

Koolerman · 10-14-2020, 08:21 AM

I just returned from a 2600 mile trip out west towing our Venture Sonic 170VBH. The camper has about 5000 miles on the OEM*Trailer King ST205/75/R14 tires on it. I installed a TPMS right before leaving so I would be able to monitor the tire pressures.
One day, while we were in camp, I noticed*that the tread on the right rear tire was getting close to the wear bars. I took a pic of it.
That night looking closer at the pic, I realized that the tread was actually worn the worse on the outside edge of the tire. It tapered from worn out on the outside edge, to actually good on the inside edge.

Grabbed a flashlight, went outside and sure enough, the tire was worn across the tread from outside edge, where it was worn to the bars, to inside edge, where it was pretty good. I was thinking I had an axle that had shifted out of square so went to the opposite side to see if that tire was worn like that also. No! The right rear was the ONLY tire with wear like that! The other three tires were evenly worn, and were no where near the wear bars. They had plenty of tread left. If you look at the pic, I circled the area where the wear bars are. You can clearly see that the wear is worse on the outside edge and gets better across to the inside edge. I inspected the rear axle tube to see if there were any signs of being struck by road debris and bent, but there were no signs of damage.

I can only come up with one explanation that makes any sense: The brake backing plate mounting flange was welded on to the end of the axle out of square from the factory. The only way to get the wear pattern I see is if the tire is tilted out at the top and in at the bottom. The opposite of what you would expect if the axle tube had been bent UP or BACK due to a large impact with an object on the road.

I swapped my new spare on in camp and towed it 1300 miles back home. Checking the wear I was just able to detect the same wear pattern starting on the new tire so whatever is wrong has been wrong from the beginning.

Any other ideas? It looks like I will be facing an axle swap soon...

CharlesinGA · 10-15-2020, 07:15 PM

Brake backing plate would have nothing to do with the wear. If your brake shoes are worn tapered I could blame the back plate flange, but only an improperly installed spindle will cause what you have, or simply an axle that needs a little tweaking.

Charles

keymastr · 10-16-2020, 09:54 PM

That's pretty good service from Trailer Kings. They are the definition of "China Bombs". I would replace all four and have an alignment done at a heavy truck and trailer shop.

Roy-c · 10-17-2020, 07:10 AM

When I hear of the right side tire on a trailer wearing the first thing that comes to mind is a friend that had a pool repair business. He was constantly replacing axles on his Bobcat trailers because they were bent. Always on the curb side. Finally figured out that the cause was his employees cutting corners too tight and hitting the curb with the right side tire. This was on heavily built commercial trailers. It will take very little to bend the axle on a travel trailer. And it never showed any damage to the tires.
Just another possibility.

Koolerman · 10-20-2020, 08:23 AM

Yes, after posting that I realized I meant to type axle stub not backing plate. Too many irons in the fire right now!

The Trailer King tires have never been an issue. The other three tires have plenty of tread left. I would buy them again. They are not worse than any other tire out there in that price range. My tires will dry rot before they wear out on a camper! When I retire that will change, but for now I will run the cheaper tires. Just need to get this wear issues sorted out first.

I sent an email to Lippert with the axle tag # and asked their opinion and possible causes. I also asked if they made a bronze bushing kit to replace the darn plastic ones the suspension system has in it. All I got back from them was a part number for a new axle. $515.95 plus up to $330 shipping depending on where I live! Didn't say if this was for a complete replacement axle with brakes or not. I found the bronze bushings on their web site for $9.95 each. Basically $139.30 for 14 of them to rebuild the suspension.

I found a site that sells custom built Dexter axles and they had a 3500 lb axle with brakes included for $549 so I guess that price is about right.

So now I have a question about some numbers on the axle tag. See pic
The string of numbers in the middle: LCI35-SBSA-83.5-65.5-NOSP-US-L-545-7242-18PT-GAWR 2800#
Anyone know how to decode that? I do know what the GAWR 2800# is.
I was hoping the 83.5 was the distance between hub faces and the 65.5 was the spring perch center to center distance? If I end up having to have an axle made, I was going to go with 3500 lb axles and replace both of them at the same time.