Front driver outer tire wear

[Titus]

We had outer tire wear with the original Continental tires set at the recommended 61 psi (IIRC). I took it in to alignment and the tire shop thought the wear looked to be the result of low pressure. He said that Continentals liked to be run at their maximum pressure (80psi). I did that and had not further front outside wear in the remaining time on Continentals. I got Michelin Defender LTX tires at 39,000 miles and have been running them at 75psi since the start - with no unusual wear patterns after 35,000 miles. Some on this forum have said that higher pressure couldn't possibly have solved the wear problem - but it did for me. I have had alignment checked when the tires were changed - camber was OK and only needed a slight adjustment to toe-in.

[InterBlog]

TL;DR from my concurrent tires thread -

If you think you will need tires soon due to differential wear, general wear, or age, you might want to get them sooner than later.

Major tire chains report that they are abnormally low on inventory because supply cannot keep up with demand during the pandemic. And their shortages are getting worse.

I tried to replace my spare tire yesterday only to discover that the tire most frequently referenced for the T1N Sprinter, the Michelin Defender LTX M/S, is sold out nation-wide. It's not an exotic or rare tire - it's a bread-and-butter product that is normally in stock within 10 miles of me. I was digging deep to find that one because it matches my other four.

[nateallen80]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

TL;DR from my concurrent tires thread -

If you think you will need tires soon due to differential wear, general wear, or age, you might want to get them sooner than later.

Major tire chains report that they are abnormally low on inventory because supply cannot keep up with demand during the pandemic. And their shortages are getting worse.

I tried to replace my spare tire yesterday only to discover that the tire most frequently referenced for the T1N Sprinter, the Michelin Defender LTX M/S, is sold out nation-wide. It's not an exotic or rare tire - it's a bread-and-butter product that is normally in stock within 10 miles of me. I was digging deep to find that one because it matches my other four.

I thought the Defender was discontinued by Michelin in the size necessary for the AI and replaced by the Agilis Crossclimate... I’m probably wrong about that, but the Defender was out of stock everywhere last year when I was searching for my replacement tires.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by nateallen80

I thought the Defender was discontinued by Michelin in the size necessary for the AI and replaced by the Agilis Crossclimate... I’m probably wrong about that, but the Defender was out of stock everywhere last year when I was searching for my replacement tires.

Very astute observation - you know tires well.

As was explained to me, Defender was not done away with exactly, but rather the name and/or model number of the Defender was changed. It's the same tire, but may appear as different, depending on the year. And if the old information is fed into the computer, it will say "discontinued".

Because I buy my tires in pairs, I have one pair of the older Defender and one pair of the newer Defender. My most recent pair was purchased a year ago tomorrow, at which time they were for sale in abundance.

The Crossclimate is my only decent alternative choice if I am not able to secure another Defender to go with the other four I already have.

However, the Crossclimate is a different tire. It has a completely different tread (images below). I don't want to mix the two.

Also, I've been told by sales reps that the Crossclimate's availability is also very limited right now. There are a few of them remaining in brick-and-mortars on the south side of Houston, but they are currently not available for order through some online sources, including the manufacturer.

Yesterday afternoon, I made the sales rep read back to me every spec of the Defender that he put on order for me from the Orlando Florida warehouse (that's where he found the closest Defender to me - I am in Houston Texas). I told him that if my order gets messed up and I don't receive the correct tire in 5 days when the shipment arrives here in Houston, then I have a bad situation, because I probably won't have time to try again to ship it from elsewhere. They need to get my order right the first time, in other words.

[Boxster1971]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

Very astute observation - you know tires well.

As was explained to me, Defender was not done away with exactly, but rather the name and/or model number of the Defender was changed. It's the same tire, but may appear as different, depending on the year. And if the old information is fed into the computer, it will say "discontinued".

Because I buy my tires in pairs, I have one pair of the older Defender and one pair of the newer Defender. My most recent pair was purchased a year ago tomorrow, at which time they were for sale in abundance.

The Crossclimate is my only decent alternative choice if I am not able to secure another Defender to go with the other four I already have.

However, the Crossclimate is a different tire. It has a completely different tread (images below). I don't want to mix the two.

Also, I've been told by sales reps that the Crossclimate's availability is also very limited right now. There are a few of them remaining in brick-and-mortars on the south side of Houston, but they are currently not available for order through some online sources, including the manufacturer.

Yesterday afternoon, I made the sales rep read back to me every spec of the Defender that he put on order for me from the Orlando Florida warehouse (that's where he found the closest Defender to me - I am in Houston Texas). I told him that if my order gets messed up and I don't receive the correct tire in 5 days when the shipment arrives here in Houston, then I have a bad situation, because I probably won't have time to try again to ship it from elsewhere. They need to get my order right the first time, in other words.

That Crossclimate+ tire in your image is not a truck tire. It is a car tire. The tire you want to replace your Defenders in the Agillis Crossclimate truck tire. You will notice in the link below that the tread pattern is the very similar to the Defender.

https://www.michelintruck.com/tires-...s-crossclimate

Good luck getting your Defender tire. But if you can’t get it the Agillis Crossclimate is the tire you want to replace your Defender.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Boxster1971

That Crossclimate+ tire in your image is not a truck tire. It is a car tire. ....

Thanks. That thought crossed my mind after I posted it - do you know how something might nag at you just below your conscious awareness... well, the pic stuck in my mind because the depth of the tire did not seem right. So I wondered if perhaps they put the name "Crossclimate" on multiple products.

Sure enough, they do that - I looked it up this morning. There is also a standard load Defender on the market, with quite different structure and tread obviously.

With 171,476 words in the English language, they need to name completely different products the same thing?! Why not have one name for each product? It would be like giving birth to triplets and naming them John 1, John 2, and John 3 instead of John, Bill, and Jack.

[OTRA15]

OT

Originally Posted by InterBlog

. . .
With 171,476 words in the English language, they need to name completely different products the same thing?! Why not have one name for each product?
. . .

Well you asked . . .

Because large corporations want to suck all of us into their addictive " . . . Buy! . . . Buy! . . . Buy! . . . " mode, in order to maximize their corporate profits.

Our convenience and well-being are quite secondary to their primary [and perceived as life-essential] purpose IMO.



FYI
FWIW

[Mansderm161]

Well, I just posted a new tire question thread before reading this thread...now I don't know what to think. I have original continental tires. I've kept them between 61 and 65 PSI. Mercedes noted today outer wear on drivers front saying it's definitely due to alignment, that's after they overfilled my tires to 78-80 psi. I asked if the 61 was really too low, would that cause the wear and he said no. After reading the comments here, I don't know what to think. And I did not know getting new Michelin tires might pose a problem with the pandemic. I've got to investigate that asap.

[InterBlog]

Yet another pandemic shortage-related advisory:

I got my spare tire, the one shipped to Houston from Orlando, put on our rim today, inflated and balanced.

BTW, someone on one of these threads asked how much the wheel weighs. With the unfashionable rim that is the T1N Sprinter's spare, it's 69 pounds with the tire installed. Probably more with the fancier rim. I weighed it.

Anyway, given my horror story a few years ago with failing tire stems, I was very careful to verify that they were installing the correct stem as they were doing this spare mount.

Answer: Nope! Stems sold out with the pandemic. They are substituting some other kind of truck tire stem because that's all they've got. Supposedly it is OK to use on this kind of tire. It IS a higher-pressure stem. But it's not what's indicated for use.

You know what this means, right? I got an apparently-acceptable substitute, but if the correct stems are out of inventory, somewhere, at some point, some SOB is going to install low-pressure stems in a high-pressure application, because that's all he's got.

And that could lead to catastrophe. Make sure that doesn't happen to you, if you replace your tires. *ASK*. See the stem(s) with your own eyes before they are installed.

[Tronadora]

Originally Posted by Mansderm161

Well, I just posted a new tire question thread before reading this thread...now I don't know what to think. I have original continental tires. I've kept them between 61 and 65 PSI. Mercedes noted today outer wear on drivers front saying it's definitely due to alignment, that's after they overfilled my tires to 78-80 psi. I asked if the 61 was really too low, would that cause the wear and he said no. After reading the comments here, I don't know what to think. And I did not know getting new Michelin tires might pose a problem with the pandemic. I've got to investigate that asap.

The advice about getting metal tire stems is well worth adopting for safety.

Regarding the tire pressures, I've experimented with pressures from 62 to 75 and I've gone back to 65 because anything more produces too harsh a ride in my opinion. We travel at just over 11,000 lbs total weight all the time. No adverse wear detectable after 15-20,000 miles this way on newish Defenders.

[Hawk-ination]

Most posts are referencing a wheel alignment problem. If it were a pressure problem, it would be extremely odd the driver’s side wears on all the posts I’ve seen and not the passenger side. Any wear like that is usually a wheel alignment/caster/camber issue. Although I am not an expert, when we sold tires in our store, that is what usually was taught as the problem.

Under inflation would also usually cause both the inside and outside part of the tire to wear. Over inflation causes the inner center part to wear unevenly.

We ran into our batteries being on backorder right now, so if anyone has anything they need done for their RV, probably getting after it sooner rather than later is a good idea, or have to wait until supply catches back up again. We’ve run into paint supplies running short, and I haven’t asked what else at this time because sometimes ignorance is bliss. Hearing it in other businesses too. I walked past a gentlemen sounding stressed on a phone call about it just today. Thanks for the heads up though. I might have put off our alignment by a week too many.

[Hawk-ination]

Finally had to make the time to replace the worn tires on the front. If it helps anyone out, our alignment was good but it ended up being a toe in problem. Hope getting it corrected keeps this set of tires in good shape for more miles than we got out of the first set.

[Titus]

Do you know the values of toe-in before adjustment? Curious how much it was off in order to cause wear. From what I have read here, van weight will affect camber, but have not seen that it affects toe-in.

[Hawk-ination]

Titus, I do not, I try not to pry too much as the shop techs are our customers and never know who gets offended when you start asking questions. Funny business we are in. Had it been my regular shop, I’d be pretty unfazed to ask questions.

I’m pretty confident though that he checked into it pretty throughly as we discussed whether the weight of the water would change the alignment values (caster/camber) values drastically or not. I’m really curious to see how these tires wear and if we have more issues or not.

The shop owner did say he would check the alignment and check on our tire wear after having more miles on it. He said our current alignment was pretty dead on so I hope he is correct.

I’m guessing the tire side wall is not as stiff as the OE tire either. I think I could feel more of the road translate into the wheel so we’ll see how long they last.