do i need a alignment or ball joints

[jake wells]

now on the front end i have a little problem the tires are new but one side is eating the inside tread of the tire and the other side is eating the inside and outside tread but leaving the center.

it doesnt pull to left or right and it makes a light
squeak/gentle pop when i come to a stop

any ideas would help.

P.S. the tires are new too and they have been on the front

 

[animal]

Jack up the truck. Support it with jack stands. With the front tires about 1/2 inch off of the ground stick a crow bar or long screwdriver under the tire and pry up while watching the lower ball joint. If you see any movement the ball joint is bad and needs to be replaced. Also while you are under there grab your tierods and twist. They should be a little hard to move. If they move eaisley they need to be replaced as well. Might be a good idea to take to an alighnment shop and have them tell you what all needs to be replaced. You will need an alighnment after the new parts anyhow.

 

[82chevy350]

the one that wears on the outsides may be the tire pressure is to low

 

[HotRodPC]

Sounds like your Camber is out of adjustment. More than anything, and yes it could also be ball joints even though other things are more than likely the problem first. The first thing in that situation to check is tire pressure as suggested above, then I would next suspect upper A arm bushings gone bad causing the tire to lean in at the top and then cause the tire to wear on the inside edge.

 

[itsachevy]

this is an old post but for future - do the ball joint check - but inner and outer tread wear together is usually inflation and or a combination of with wrong load rating on tires as an example my c20 requires E load rating - buddy gave me free a c rated tire with a max press of 50 psi - tire shop filled them to 35 and the outer treads were wearing faster - in the end nothing less than 45 psi would keep this from happening thats only 5 below max press. by conmtrast my e rated toyo m55 tires with 80 max. press. do best at 50 psi unloaded - thats 30 psi less -so having proper load tires is important and always use Lt vs, P metric tires on a truck .

the wear on the left tire in this article was wearing on outside only - probably the truck is driven without a passenger most of the time and underinflation can do this too - im one of those siuations were its mostly just me in the truck so inflate the drivers tire by a few psi over the pass tire .

another point to consider is how often do you ever load the truck up , if not very often you might be better with less positive camber , positive camber is thrown into pick up trucks because the assumption is it will be driving with a load all the time - and the weight will even out the camber so the tires dont get chewed away .

if you inflate a tire too much the center starts to wear faster than the outer

most people never think about this stuff ,but driving commercially it makes a huge difference.