Tire Wear

 

I also agree that it is time to take it to a trailer place to get the alignment checked. It is a 100+ mile round trip for me so it will be a while before I can make that happen. I'll post the results whenever I get them.

 

In the meanwhile, I did a rough check on my own by centering a 4 foot straight edge on the bottom of the axle and measuring the rise at the 2 foot mark - got 11/32 inch. Not very precise, but the best I could figure out with what I have to work with. If my math is correct, it calculates to about a .82 degree bend in the axle tube.

 

Perhaps more interesting is that I made the same measurement on a utility trailer that has a very similar axle (3,500lb Dexter Torflex) and came up with the same rise. The utilty trailer was on its wheels, but without any cargo when I made the measurement. I had the r-pod axle hanging from the frame with jackstands under the trailer frame - so no load on the axle. The utility trailer has not exhibited any  strange wear patterns on its 14 year old tires so I am inclined to think that it has to be something other than the bend in the axle that is causing problems with the r-pod tires.

 

Thanks for all your input. I'll let you know if I come up with any useful answers.

 

While we had the R-Pod last year we put 20 000 km on it in one summer and tire wear was never an issue, they wore even and thread wear was about 40% when we traded it in the fall. We did a lot of high speed driving (100 - 110 km/hour), the tires were inflated 5psi above recommended with Nitrogen and they were balanced.

The tires never even run warm, never mind hot. We used a WDH but no sway control. BTW, these were the original tires that came on the Pod.

 

My $.02