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AV Pulls Left After Tire Rotation-Tire Failed

UtahAV

UtahAV

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Hello everyone,

I just did the fourth tire rotation on my AV and now I am having problems with it pulling to the left side. I did the rotation last Thursday and it isn't getting better or going away. I did the standard rear tires forward, cross front tires to the back rotation. I checked the air pressures when I rotated and adjusted all of the tires to 38lbs. Before the rotation the truck tracked great, just slightly pulling to the right as it is suppost to. Does anyone have any ideas on this one?

Thanks

-Mark
-UtahAV
 
A tire is making it pull due to any number of things........most likely a front one too
 
Try double checking the pressure in the front tires.

I have my own gauge that I keep in the glove box.
Might not be that accurate, but using the same gauge will keep things consistant.
 
Swap the front tires from one side to the other. If the truck now pulls in the opposite direction you know you have a bad tire. If it still pulls in the same direction you may have a front-end or alignment problem.
 
Tonight I re-checked the tire pressures and the Right Rear was one pound higher than the rest. I let a pound out and went for a short drive. It seemed better but then again I never got over 40 mph. I will know for sure tomarrow when I drive to work on the freeway. I have a hard time believing that one pound could make that big of a difference but we'll see.

Thanks,

-Mark
-UtahAV
 
UtahAV said:
Tonight I re-checked the tire pressures and the Right Rear was one pound higher than the rest. I let a pound out and went for a short drive. It seemed better but then again I never got over 40 mph. I will know for sure tomarrow when I drive to work on the freeway. I have a hard time believing that one pound could make that big of a difference but we'll see.

Thanks,

-Mark
-UtahAV
Click to expand...

Keep us posted
 
I doubt 1 psi was the problem...heck the error of the gage could be that much.........

Keep us informed
 
Well it still pulls to the left. I figured that it would because I really didn't think that 1 pound would matter. I think I will try crossing the front two tires this weekend, as Big_Don mentioned, and see what happens. If it pulls to the right I think I will swap fronts for backs and run them that way until they wear out. I have a year left on my lease and I didn't want to replace the tires before that. My plan right now is to buy the truck at the end of the lease (please, no comments from the accountants out there :) ) and then put on bigger tires and maybe a 3" body lift. I don't want to invest the money until I'm sure that I am going to buy the AV. I'll keep you all posted.

-Mark
-UtahAV

 
Don't cross over the tires---go same side front and rear.this should get rid of the pulling from the belting--good luck
 
I rotated my tires and I got them balanced again just to check to see if they are still OK. I found that I had to move some of the weights to balance the tire. Everything is alright when I drive and I have found that the pressure has changed when I moved the tires from the rear to the front. Just keep checking the pressure constently.
 
I switched the left front and left rear on Sunday and it is still pulling to the left. I am going to try the right sides this week. I am starting to suspect the alignment but I can't figure why a simple tire rotation would hurt the alignment. It was fine before and its not the first time I have rotated my own tires. It just doesn't seem to me that you do anything while rotating that could cause an alignment issue. Any ideas on that?

-Mark
-UtahAV
 
I swaped the right front and right rear tonight it still pulls left. I guess I need an alignment. It doesn't make any sence though. It was fine before the rotation now it pulls ? :rolleyes:

-Mark
-UtahAV
 
:B:Could be alignement--after all you have done--would think so!

We did the same on a Pontiac Montana and when we returned the tires to the orignal position all was fine--This tire rotation is same side only--we tried the x over and it caused all sort of handling problems.

Keep us posted!
 
The pulling problem all came to a head this week. I crossed the front two tires about a month ago and the pulling pretty much went away. If anything it pulled a bit to the right but it was little enought that I could live with it. My plan was to run the tires in the same positions for about a year and then replace them. About two weeks ago I inspected all of the tires again and found no problems. The last two weeks the tires seemed to be getting rather loud on the road. On Saturday of this week I was at work and ran to get breakfast with the windows down. The road noise was very loud. When I got back to work I took a look at my left front tire and couldn't believe what I found...

31162996.jpg


This is on the outside of the tire.

31163017.jpg


This is on the inside.

I go to my dealer's service department and ask them what they think. I talked to the service manager. He has been there for many years and I trust his opinion. He first says "It's a rock" I told him "No its not, if you push on it it's soft, its rubber from inside the tire." He goes and gets a screwdriver and pokes at it a bit. Then I show him the one on the inside of the tire. He calls a couple of other guys over and they all talk about it. Finally he stands back and says" That is the darndest thing I have ever seen." He said he has never seen a tire fail this way in all his years in service. He sends me to the Goodyear dealer that the dealership uses for all of their tire needs.

I get to Goodyear and the guy comes out to take a look. He starts to prod at it and then just kind of goes quiet. He inspects all of my tires and then we go inside. I finally ask him what he thinks it is and he says "Well what happened is when they popped the tire out of its mold a piece of hot rubber fell from the mold and stuck to your tire." I don't think so! I told him that I wash my truck at least twice a month and I would have noticed it. I also told him that it isn't sticking to the tire its coming out of the dang thing!! He doesn't say anything. He takes a tread wear mesurement and looks the tire up in the warrenty book. He tells me that Goodyear will credit me about $50 bucks because my tread is 47% gone. To his credit he ends up giving me a decend deal on a set of Michelin LTX M/S tires and the $50 credit. Overall I got screwed. I am absolutely thrilled with the Michelin's and can promise you I won't have a Goodyear on my truck for a while. :p

I also showed the pictures to my boss who owned a Goodyear franchise for many years. He too had never seen a tire fail this way. Has anyone ever experienced this sort of a failure before?

-Mark
-UtahAV
 
It looks like an old fashioned tire plug.....

DiId you buy used?
 
It looks like an old fashioned tire plug.....

DiId you buy used?
Click to expand...

No, I am the only owner, they are the original tires and that tire has never been repaired. I did repair one tire but it is not this one. The two pics are of two seperate blisters or knots. The first pic is the outside of the tire the second pic is on the inside. The two knots don't line up across the thread either. They are seperated by about 1/3 the diameter of the tire. The tires had 26700 miles on them. Thread was 47% worn.

-UtahAV
-Mark
 
I have not seen any thing exactly like that but the first looks like a large puncture the second looks as if the tire was punctured and some or the cord/belting material is coming out through the puncture. Was the tire leaking air? All outward appearances would indicate some trauma to the tread - course this is my opinion - do you remember going off road in some course rocks or maybe running over some limbs or other debris? This is just an opinion as I have not seen anything like the second pic - but the first looks exactly like a large puncture were the object went in and came out.
 
:) Mark, glad to see that you got some credit for the tires. The "knots" are the beginings of a Belt Edge Separation. I have seen this on almost every brand of tire, BFG and Goodyear most often, except Michelin. Eventually that tread cap would come off and begin to beat the hell out of a fender. We see a whole bunch more of this here in Texas during the summer. Thats why Goodyear, Michelin, General, Continental and several other manufacturers all do their testing out around San Angelo and Uvalde.

Truck tires seem to do this more than passenger or high performance tires due to the fact that most of them do not have any kind of overlay of the steel belts near the shoulder tread area. Just about every other passenger or performance tire uses some sort of nylon or aramid fiber as an edge banding(similar to a hem) at the edge of the belt package.

I have the LTX M/S now, but think I might get the CrossTerrain next time, it just seems to be a quieter tire.

Good Luck
:B: Tiregod1 :B:
 
Thanks for the reply Tiregod. That would make sence concidering the tire was causing the AV to pull to the left before the tire finally failed. It sure came on suddenly, 2 weeks max since I had done a tire inspection.

-Mark
-UtahAV
 
discount tire caught mine in the begining stages of what happened to you. all four tires had this on both inside and out. the good year people were verry hush hush and only said thay would put in a call to good year. she did take down all four tires serial #s
I will get some pics before replacement tomorrow.
my dealer gladly replaced all of them under warrenty at 24k miles
just glad my local discount tire guys were on the job that day
I love that place
blackthree4me
 
On my first AV, the tires started making a womp womp womp noise. I rotated them religiously. I swore I'd never buy Goodyears again. Now, on my third AV and it has the same tires, hope it doesn't happen again. I wish they'd use Michelins as standard! :B:
 
Blackthree4me, let me know what happens with that. I can't believe that if this has happened to two of us that there aren't more out there. They tried to explain mine by saying that a belt had shifted in the tire, which does sometimes happen. I can't believe that you had that happen on four tires on the same truck though. It has to be something else. I'm glad you found it early on. As I wrote earlier in this thread I had carefully inspected my tires just two weeks before it happened to them. It seems to happen pretty quickly. At least you got your tires for free. To bad they couldn't have been Michelin's like I replaced my Goodyears with. They are sweet tires.

-UtahAV
-Mark
 
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