severe front tire wear (cupping)
 

I've got a 99 3500 4x4 which has been wearing the front tires severely. I am getting alot of inside wear, outside wear, and cupping across the entire tire. The truck will wander to the right, and pulls to the right when braking. I checked the track bar and it will ove some when turning the steering wheel (engine off). The truck has 76K miles on it and is still the original trackbar. Does this sound like the problem? All of the other steering components (balljoints, tierod ends, etc.) seem to be ok.

Also, if it is the track bar, should I go with a Lukes Link or a Lifetime Napa Bar?

Thanks

Welcome aboard poopdude! Lets see, rough Iowa roads, winter seasons, possible farm use...I would check the ball joints as I would be surprised if they were still good. On the track bar there is now a company making a bracket to use the new style track bar that doesn't have the ball stud. I have the link at work, hopefully someone will chime in. On your wander while hitting the brakes there is a million page tsb that addresses that problem 05-03-97.

There area bunch of things that can cause the wear you are getting. J Body said most of them, but I would also take a good hard look at how efficient your shocks are. Also, don't forget steering alignment, specially if you have have had any front end work done such as ball joints.
Once you found the problem(s), post the fix.

Thanks for the info. I will probably take it to a guy I know that does quite a bit of front end work. I am also getting som clicking noises out of the left front. I can't believe it's front wheel bearings. I just put all new in about 7K miles ago. I used to have a 93 W350 with 180K miles on it. I wish I had kept it. Seemed to be alot more solid truck than this one.

I had cupping tire wear, I fixed everything that was loose and still had it. New shocks did the trick.

I've already put new shocks on, but thanks anyway.

manureman, just out of curiosity, did your cupping start AFTER you installed the new shocks, or had it started before the new shocks were installed?
To prove if anything you do works or not, maybe you can rotate your tires front to back after the work and watch what happens to the "undamaged" tread.

The tires were cupping before I installed the new shocks. I thought that would fix it but it didn't. I have about 10K miles on the new shocks and still have the rapid wear & cupping.