Tire wear pattern

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80cruiserfan

80cruiserfan

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Joined
Nov 29, 2005
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29
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148
Location
Haiti
I have a 1997 Land Cruiser, which is the full-time 4wd model. I was looking at my tires the other day (purchased 2 years ago), and I was surprised how much the front tires are used up compared to the rears. It's almost as if the car was a front-wheel drive. I don't know the ratio between the front and rear axle but it this the kind of wear pattern that I should expect?
 
Wear happens from braking & turning as well as accelerating, so front tire wear is normal.
 
98 SNAKE EATER said:
Proper alignment and rotation is critical to tire wear :o

Each manufacturer has a specific rotation guide for a reason, so follow your owner's manual and not some random guide on your tire shop's wall :doh:

I have well over 100k miles on my BFG MT's and still have plenty of tread left :)
Click to expand...

over 100k on MTs wow! I'm not sure how Toyota wants you to rotate, but I just go in a circle and rotate the spare through, every 5,000 (makes it easy to remember). Seems to be working so far
 
akarilo said:
What is the 80 series pattern? I've always been a front to rear kinda guy but I'm sure Toyota has their own rendition.
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97FZJ80RotationDiagram.JPG



hawaiicruz said:
over 100k on MTs wow! I'm not sure how Toyota wants you to rotate, but I just go in a circle and rotate the spare through, every 5,000 (makes it easy to remember). Seems to be working so far
Click to expand...

Each manufacturer uses a specific rotation pattern for a reason :cool:

On a properly aligned US spec 80, the LF tire tends to wear faster due to road crown :hhmm:

Because of this, it's immediately sent to the spare location when rotated :idea:

roadcrownrotation2.jpg


However, on RHD rigs, the rotation guide is a mirror image because they drive on the opposite side of the road :o
 
I've never rotated the tires on any of my AWD vehicles and they all get more than the rated use and wear evenly.

What kind of wear are you seeing? Scalloping, even, in the center, on the outside...? You need to be more specific for anyone to give you any suggestions, but in my experience rotation is not the issue.
 
landtank said:
What kind of wear are you seeing? Scalloping, even, in the center, on the outside...? You need to be more specific for anyone to give you any suggestions, but in my experience rotation is not the issue.
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The wear on the front tires is not uneven. They are just more worn out than the rears. With the way it is I may have to put the rears in the front and install new tires to the rear.
 
I don't know your driving conditions but on a AWD system the tire providing the greatest distance (largest diameter) per revolution gets the wear. So ideally all the tires should wear evenly. However that would be on a truck without alignment issues and would also assume that nothing crazy was done like 4.10 gears in the front diff and 4.11s in the rear.

I see that it's a LHD converted truck. I'd inspect the front axle and drive train closely to make sure it was done correctly.
 
Landtank: I don't think I have any alignment issues. The car is straight at all times. No pulling to one side or another. I made sure I had a new LHD steering gearbox installed, which is the way to go, correct?
 
80cruiserfan said:
Landtank: I don't think I have any alignment issues. The car is straight at all times. No pulling to one side or another. I made sure I had a new LHD steering gearbox installed, which is the way to go, correct?
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Never did it but it's more involved than that. The panhard is on the other side as well as the steering arms. I always thought that the front axle and frame bracket for the panhard would be swapped out. Not to mention the brake master cylinder and all that stuff. But I don't know for sure.

Is it possible that they were always worn more and it just got noticeable? Or did you replace all 4 tires at once before?
 
these 4 tires were purchased together.
 
Here are pictures of a rear tire and a front tire.
IMG00026-20100614-0657.webp
IMG00027-20100614-0658.webp
 
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