Doesn't make sense. If they are too stupid to figure out the problem they deserve the increase in vehicle maintenance cost and lower profit margins.

 

how does a rear heavy van cause front tires to deteriorate faster? wouldn't a rear heavy van cause the rear tires to wear faster?

 

I think I got 60+ k miles out of my first set of Vancos.

 

I'm at 45k in my 1500. Purchased it with 18k miles. I can't say if the front tires were original or replaced at some point prior to my purchase but I've put 27k on mine and they're about ready to be replaced.

5k from a set of tires - something's wrong!

 

My Vanco’s have 48,000 and I’ll get another 20,000 easily.

 

I have 55,000 on the vanco's rotating the spare into the mix 3 times. Lots of tread left.

 

same here.. rotate every 10k... but my van is mostly empty save for a futon and powered subwoofer.
plenty of tread left.
I can see where a heavily loaded van may bring SOME weight off the fronts. .but.. that engine and tranny etc is pretty dang heavy enough to hold it down.

 

Its kinda odd but they have a lot of 1500 promasters in the fleet doing the same thing. Each van has a different driver but they are all loaded about the same. So if you guys get average mileage from your tires it has to be loading? Guess this will just be a wonderment.

 

Something sounds fishy? Company or mechanic making money on tires. Post office uses promasters and expediting with mine I'm averaging 200,000 miles plus on vancos.

 

200,000 on a set of tires?????? You are kidding right?

 

200,000 miles on one set of tires?

is that possible? do they run the tires until they are bald? lol

even 200,000 KMs sound impossible.

but then again, i once hooked up with a married older woman. and i never thought that was possible. so so i guess many things can be possible. lol

 

No. 3rd set. 507,723 miles expediting on my 2014 gas 2500. Rotate every other oil change. All highway miles.

 

That guy must be smoking crack. My race car gets more miles out of R comp tires.

 

dont race tires only last one race? i guess not then?

 

Mine only has 48,000 km on it but the original tires (Vanco) show next to no wear. This is with mostly highway and secondary roads driving. I could see getting 200,000 km out of them.

To wear these out in 5000 mi (8000 km) something is seriously amiss, with either the alignment, or the pressure, or the loading, or the driver ...

 

Bringing up this thread again since I'm noticing unusual wear on my front tires too. At 6500 miles the rear tires look like new but the front are both noticeably worn, slightly more on the outsides. I know my older Subaru Forester wears front tires slightly faster on the outside since the wheel camber tilts increasingly more as you sharpen the turn. I'll check to see if the van does this later today but when standing in front of the vehicle I notice the camber may be tilted in at the bottom a bit more than necessary. I do a lot of tight turns back and forth, jockeying the van to get it parked off to the side of my garage doors and there are a lot hilly roads with tight turns locally, plus I still unintentionally spin the tires a bit (yes, I mean patch out, burn rubber, etc) from a stop due to the low gearing but this seems like too much. There's no pulling or excessive tire gnashing sounds (for the most part) and other than less tread, the wear looks pretty normal. Guess I'll rotate the tires today, lay off the gas pedal a bit, keep an eye on it, and get the alignment checked if it continues.

 

With my off road tires, I notice the van really vibrate when making turns telling me that the camber tilts on the front edge of the knobby tire. I would think the geometry of the steering could be a contributing factor unless you mainly drive straight on the highways as I do.

 

Yeah, I think you're right as I hear the tires a lot more in those tighter turns as well. With this much heavier vehicle and all the hills and tight turns around here I guess I can expect to need tires more often. Just didn't expect to see about 1/4-1/3 of the tire ground down after only 6500 miles. At this rate I'll be lucky to get 20K out of them.

 

I agree with you on the short life. Perhaps the rubber compound is softer on that particular batch? The other thing I can think of is the fact that being front wheel drive, the fronts really have to dig in to lug that weight around. Even if the van is empty it is still a load to pull especially with the peppy low first gear. I notice that even if I try to be light footed on taking off from a stop, the van lunges as it wants to run! I think that would also put more wear on the front CV axles too. It is just the nature of this beast.

 

Ok, so went out and rotated the tires and on visually inspecting them side by side (in the same light) they aren't as bad as first thought. Maybe 10-15% difference front to back and the wear on the outside of the front tires wasn't all that much different from the inside. Guess the difference in light and there being more dust on the outer, front edge (after jockeying a bit to park) got me all worked up. I'll keep an eye on them of course but overall they are probably in line with what to expect on this front wheel drive van.