'pants

I don't put a lot of miles on my '97 Ram dually. When I got it as a well-taken-care-of used truck in 2005, I decided to go all in with six new BFGs from Sam's Club, where (along with Costco) returns are incredibly liberal and so (usually) are similar complaint issues, eg early tire-wear. At about the 12K mile mark, it was readily apparent that my fronts were wearing rapidly. I went to Sam's and pointed this out. They rotated the tires and sent me on my way. A few thousand miles later I was back because the 'latest' front set was also showing rapid wear. When I asked about warranty coverage, they immediately got uncharacteristically weasely, asking me how I knew whether my alignment was OK and pointing out that I'd not been faithful to their "bring it in every 5000 miles" for a "free check and rotation." True, I'd naively assumed that was an option, not a must - my bad for not being more suspicious and reading the fine print.

I swore off Sam's tires after that, and let this set wear to the point where four had to be replaced - not long. Shopping around, I decided to go to a place convenient to my workplace. The small shop's owner had a no-frills/no-BS attitude and, hearing my Sam's Club hassles, said I'd not have to deal with that runaround at his shop. "So how often do I need to bring it in for the checks/rotations?," I asked him. His response was to the effect that he was very flexible - bring it in if there's a problem, or maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 to 7K miles. And yes, I should check my alignment somewhere - he doesn't have a rack - but the new four tires would carry a 40K mile warranty.

Wanting to be sure there wasn't indeed an alignment problem, I scheduled and appointment with another shop & paid them something over $100 to check it out within a week or so after I'd gotten the new tires. Turned out it was nearly perfect already, per their printed results. I think they tweaked something by a tenth of a degree - anyway, clearly this wasn't the reason for the rapid wear.

I went back to the small shop for my first check at about 5K miles, and they rotated the tires, pronounced everything OK, but lamely, put the most-worn pair on as my outer duallies - as if wanting them to be obvious to the next annual safety-inspector. Yeah...thanks. I let it go at that.

I changed jobs, so going back to this shop for the second check wasn't nearly as easy as it had been before. When I did stop in, I'd planned to kill two birds with one stone by asking them also to mount/balance some tiny 10" tires I'd had to mailorder from the UK for another car. There was no business in their shop yet that morning, but they were all in some kind of foul mood, barking at me to move my truck to begin with, though no one had bothered to signal me to park elsewhere while I'd been maneuvering slowly to be positioned to back into their small shop for service.

After I'd moved, the owner came out and looked at the mount/balance work I had brought in, and became outright abusive - it was /weird/ - he said something like "NO, we're not going to mount those for you!..why don't you take those damned things to whoever you bought them from, and get THEM to mount them!" It didn't matter to him that they're not sold in the USA, period, nor that I'd of course expected to pay. I never had a chance to point out that I'd paid him to mount the identical tires less than a year prior and it hadn't been a problem then, so... Before I could even get to that, he was already walking away and telling me to get out of his shop!

Needless to say, my "free rotation and tire check" did not occur on that date, either. That would have been at about the 10K miles mark.

Now I'm at about the 15K miles mark, and at least two of the four are /way/ below what will pass inspection - maybe all four - while the original two BFGs are flat-out-bald. Not anxious to go back and see this guy, who'd treated me like $hit last time, I instead called them to ask what it would take to get warranty coverage. I recounted some of the above - skipping reminding him of how badly he'd treated me when I came in for the second check. They don't keep records of return visits anyway, it appears - they just note the date of my return on my own paperwork, so it'd be pretty easy for me to fake this, and I wouldn't hesitate to do so, under the circumstances.

But it doesn't seem to matter, even if he now believes I brought the truck in for that second inspection. His response was almost exactly the BS I'd gotten from Sam's Club, but with an additional twist, telling me that having my alignment checked 15K miles ago was not nearly good enough. How often did he suggest this be done? Every 5K miles.

REALLY? Who DOES that?

His blame-shifting strategy was to tell me that the tire wholesaler here (Nexen) would deny my claim unless I could show evidence of "regular" alignment checks. I reminded him that this was precisely the kind of runaround I'd complained to him about when I went to him to begin with, and that he'd said I wouldn't have to deal with from him. Silence. I told him that if the rejection would come from the wholesaler, I might a well have that fight with them directly - also hoping that maybe they would have a different response and (dream on) give him some minor ***-kicking for so poorly representing their policies. Fat chance.

Nexen put me on with a guy that didn't have the telephone training to introduce himself - and didn't seem to understand that this is common business courtesy, leaving me to ask him who he was and what his position was with the company. HIS take on this? He thinks my tires are "too old anyway." Yep, nothing to do with miles, just the age. "The Owner" is supposed to call me back, but hold out no hope for a satisfactory resolution.

So: does anyone have a "go-to" recommendation for a particular brand, say, or national chain, so I don't have to keep going through this crap? Shopping around for a low tire price seems false economy when they fail so young and there's no actual warranty claim possible.

And: why do I persistently have nearly-bald tires at mileages around 15-20K? All stock sizes and rims, no offroading, no 4WD on pavement...pretty tame life, really.

--Dave

gorms

I hate tire shops too....

Seriously, I don't count on warranties for that reason. If I can get 30-40k out of any set I'll be ecstatic. So far Firestone transforce have been the best at about 40k. Currently running Michelin LTX-AT2, and with 10k the edges are just worn a bit, including plowing last winter and hauling about 12 cords of firewood this summer, few trips with the camper, etc. so they are doing good.

I buy them online (amazon does free shipping with my wife's prime acct) and take the loose wheels into either sears or a guy up the street from me. Sears has been really good, not much of the third degree. I'm pretty sure they offer road hazard warranty even if you don't buy their tires. Shoot, last month I brought in 4 trailer tires/rims to be swapped, it was $32 with disposal and new stems, they couldn't have cared less I bought the tires somewhere else.

As for your wear, are they wearing evenly, just quickly? Maybe get something a little wider to spread the heavy front end out a bit, iirc the duallys ran 215's ? stock. If they are cupping or wearing on one edge you may indeed have alignment issues.

'pants

Thanks Gorms - yes, 215 is my/stock size.

Did you get the 40K miles on your DUALLY? Wow... OTOH maybe I need some snow and ice to help me slide my way out of some of the tire-wear problems.

With my first set I was pretty erratic about keeping up with tire pressure, and it showed up as somewhat heavier wear on the front outer shoulders - but as I said, the alignment turned out to be fine. The second set's been less demanding of air (it's not that I'm better at maintaining them, really) but that only means the wear has been more even across the width - no cupping, that is.

Firestone might be an option - gotta look up that model you mentioned - and I don't think I'd ever considered using Amazon, though Prime is part of my lifeline, as one of few ways to get stuff to Honolulu without bleeding profusely for UPS/FedEx etc. I'll check that out. Sears has shrunk pathetically here - closed two of three locations - but they're not impossibly far, even at that.

Going wider (or larger) interests me, but I seem to recall a lot of "we won't cover you for _____ if you do that" from at least one shop, along with them saying they had no way to advise me as to what larger sizes would even clear. The 215/85-R16s really look wimpy in those giant wheel-wells, also. Is there a go-to source for choosing larger sizes that will work/are recommended?

As if I haven't ranted enough, your question about cupping reminded me of my futile argument with Sam's Club from back in the day: let's say I'd been like clockwork, bringing the truck in for rotations and "checks" every 5K miles, and thus they'd seen the rapidly-increasing, but reasonably-even wear. What would have been different? Maybe they'd have... sent me for an alignment-check? I'd still have come back waving a piece of paper that said my alignment had been fine, so their only fallback at that point would have been to claim they'd have been able to spread that rapid wear out a little more by rotating the tires more frequently, so I'd have gotten a few thousand more miles out of the set, rather than having the fronts worn beyond spec, with the rears still marginal? Is that really a better result for either party?

I hate to conclude that it's just the way a dually eats tires, but after the same issue on two different brands now, I'm not sure what else to think.

--Dave

gorms

Didn't notice your location...I'm sure that limits your options a bit.

No dually for me, both trucks are SRW. And I'll be lucky to rotate twice in those 40k miles.

And again, tires are expensive and nobody likes burning through them, but I leave the warranty stuff alone because of the headaches. Some people somehow get 80k out of a set, I have never come close, and I'm okay with that!

That said I *think* you can run a 235/85 on your stock rims without clearance issues. Later 2nd gens had a bit more backspacing and can take a bit wider, not sure how much. Go even bigger if you want with rear spacers.

Who cares what they say, it is YOUR truck, not theirs after all. About half the time I have found tire shop techs pretty much incompetent anyway, so a tape measure and a prybar are usually all you need to do a front end check. It really is not some mysterious voodoo or something.

96_12V

So I'm also in the market for tires now too, but in this case a '98 4WD 2500, that's had Michelin LTX's on them. I would suggest giving a look to some of the well-known tire places that have good online sites and compare, you may find out some good review info there.

Being also a Sam's member, I wandered around in their tire section Sunday and noted that all of the four types of Load Range E tires they had in stock all had NO mileage warranty at all. Wonder if some of this could be related. I'm thinking about ordering the Michelin LTX A/T 2 out of my local Farm & Fleet store, which is a mile from my work and actually - I've never had a bad experience there. They do 4-wheel alignments there everyday, and none of the runaround that you have experienced. I'll gladly pay a little more for good service!

'pants

That sounds like one of the perks of living in Iowa, or farm country in general: trucks in general, and 4WD in particular, being more common...here, there's no shortage, but they're mostly about show. Personally, I can't respect a truck that lets off a blast of air-freshener I can smell all the way across the shopping center from where he parked at Nordstrom's...

None of the online tire dealers exist in Hawaii - too small a market, I would guess - and though some ship to individual customers, it ain't cheap. We got Sears (one left, that is), Sam's, Costco, a smattering of Goodyear and Firestone franchises, and one local chain that has a rep that might mean they'd stand behind the warranty... for my third set... I may give them a try this time. I've not bought tires from Costco yet, mostly because they are SOOO incredibly busy that I'd dread having to go back in for anything unusual. But they're so good about other warranty issues that it may be worth the pain of that wait.

As to that Sam's "no warranty" thing - that sounds vaguely familiar, but I might be thinking of commercial batteries (notice that a year or two back, batteries suddenly went from having these insane 84-month warranties to ONE YEAR? OK, that's for another warranty complaint...) The half-baked explanation went something like, "...well, it's for commercial use, so the quality is better, so...there's no warranty. But nothing's gonna go wrong."

Oh.

My interpretation is that they can get away without offering a warranty to a deep-pocketed fleet account-holder that wouldn't bat an eye at the price of the "commercial" stuff, but I'm more of an expert at cynicism, not so much about the tire biz.

I do think I'll keep getting all David Horowitz, going up Nexen's chain of command, especially since "da owner" didn't even bother calling me back to hear my rant...

--Dave