Squirrely ride after tire rotation

97 reg cab, 2.7, 4x4, AT tires, 190k. Steering was fine until i got my tires rotated while I was having a tire patched. Then it was a handful to keep between the lines, I got stopped twice in two weeks by a state trooper thinkin I was drunk. Anyways i got an alignment and the shop had to do my tire rods in the process becuase they were too rusty. Now if I let go of the wheel on a perfect section of highway, it'll go straight. If I let go on anything less than perfect, and especially with little bumps, the steering wheel jerks left and right. Anybody help is appreciated.

 

huh.. try rotating the tires back the way there were before. See if that changes anything

 

Unless you have some horribly cupped tires from not rotating them often enough, I would go back and tell the alignment shop to double check things. Your flattest tread should be up front, they are going to be the most stable, while your worse cupped/worn tires should be on the back with the air dropped a few psi from the front. A good alignment shop, before aligning, would have put the two best on the front to get the best possible read from the turn tables as they work and align.

Sometimes when you cup a tire(s) from lack of rotation, you will never get rid of the squirrley handling and ride. It's there till the next purchase,,then it makes you wonder what is going on with these new tires,,lol.

 

Tires were brand new when I bought the truck (Mastercraft AT) and I've put about 40K on them without rotation. All four tires look almost exactly the same, I just had em rotate cause I figured it was time. I'll take it back to em and have em check it out again.

 

40k miles? That's a long time without a rotation. I do mine on my FJ every 5k miles.

 

40K without rotating will do it. You need to rotate every 3-5000 miles on street tires and every 2-3000 miles on aggressive tires

 

Good call. Contrary to what one might think,The fronts take more heat from toe in and abrupt sidewall angle changes. In the city,the percentage goes up then. Alot of time,,just from being on the front,,,it will walk those sidewalls quite a bit which in turn creates tread squirm. The higher the ply rating,,the faster the tread face wear. Lots of load changes being induced on those fronts while they are there.. you know,,the usual wear points and the overall reason for rotating. To keep all 4 matched as close as possible.

40K is a good distance. I have seen 60K on a no rotate and the tires looked great. They didn't handle worth a dime once we rotated them, but the tread looked fine. Toyo Open Country A/T first gen tread design, Load C.

Before they turn wrenches,,just have them swap them back and see how it does hc.

 

this time around was 7k on the duraTrac rotation at DT, ...have almost 52k miles on them!, tread depth is looking great the tech said
but i may have to double check the psi they put in, i asked for 32psi and feels like they put 29psi in the front from that door placard
idk!

 

40k miles without a rotation is way too long to try and rotate them now, rotations should be done every oil change or ~5k ideally. At 40k I wouldn't even bother because something like this can happen. They might look ok at a glance but are likely worn specifically due to each corner they were on.

I would rotate them back to where they were, ride them until you need new tires then make sure to rotate the new ones regularly

 

Hopefully the OP got his problem resolved six years ago.

 

damnit, I got lured into a dead thread again lol.