Got a friend with '14 2500 4x4. He's a farmer and this is his "daily driver". While it's not hooked to something constantly, it does get worked.

First, He's a little bent that the stock Firestones are only good for about 20k. I dig a little more and find out he's running the tires under inflated by about 15 psi at 65'ish. I told him he's pretty much gonna have to run 'em at 80 when he's pulling things like water tanks, peanut trailers and such. I wouldn't think he'd get more than 30 or 35k out of tires getting used like that very much anyway but I'm just guessing.

Second, He explained that the transmission will sometimes appear to drop out of gear when starting something like his water tank which he says only weighs 6800. This is in a field environment, in the dirt or grassy areas. He says if the rear end breaks loose a little the truck will drop to idle. If I understood him right, he says he has to put it back in park to reset it. My first thought is the traction control and/or the stability (yaw) control kicking in. I drove the truck tonight and couldn't replicate it without a load on the truck with the traction control on or off but I did get into it some and noticed no slip or anything that felt weird under power. The shifts were firm and smooth. Don't these trucks have both traction control and stab control? Could that be an issue?

The last one is his rear diff I believe. The way he described it, it sounded to me like the limited slip is not disengaging and the rear end is acting somewhat like a locker more than it should in turns. Again, I didn't notice this but the circumstances weren't good for it either in my short drive. I'm concerned too that some of this might be too much throttle/torque input in turns. I mean, I remember how my trucks were (I'm without one right now) and I recall it was pretty easy to get the rear to engage both sides in a turn.

What do you guys think? I think the tire inflation is a non-starter. He's gonna have air 'em up in a farm truck hauling any kind of serious load. The other two, I dunno.

 

Of course tire life is greatly affected by not only proper air pressure, but loading/weight, heat (ambient and surface), road surface conditions or lack of, types of roads, curvy or straight, alignment, tire compound, tread design.........
I've had the worst tire wear in Arizona (HOT) and the mountains of CO (lots of hiway speed twisty roads) and the best tire wear in western WA (cool, wet roads predominately, light on the throttle takeoffs due to wet roads).
The one common denominator is every OE tire I've had with the exception of BFG Rugged Trails which are a very hard compound and horrible traction, is they wear out very quickly compared to higher $ tires.
Having run a fleet of these on 99% snow and ice, the traction control limiting throttle response was common. Taking the traction control off or 4 lo before having to "punch it" in slippery conditions was the solution there.