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Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Titan owner: WHY am i blowing wheel bearings? Can’t seem to keep one for more than a few months. Thought it was the wheel bearings so i went with precision’s this go around but still no luck. The truck has a full 6in fab tech lift and 20x12s truck did great for a good while but now I’m even scared to drive at interstate speeds. It’s also began to wear out my front tires on the inside. Has new ball joints ,wheel bearings, control arms, fresh alignment. I did notice my rack and pinion bushings are shot. Would that cause that ? Thanks in advance.

Intelligent Tinkering: Your alignment is out, for sure, whether you had it done or not. Uneven tire wear is usually an alignment issue unless the bearings were loose for a really long time, which is not that likely because when they're loose they degrade fast. If your tires are getting "cut" ie, worn just on one edge, that's one kind of alignment issue. If they have the somewhat rarer camber wear, which is when the unusual wear starts out deeper and decreases gradually across the face of the whole tire, that's a different kind. "Cut" tires are typically due to toe issues, involving tie rod adjustments, but a loose rack may do this too, while camber wear means the whole wheel is tilted in or out, and you need camber bolts or the camber bolts you have need adjusting, or replacing and adjusting. This is an oversimplification, and there are other possible issues you may have going on, but it may help you diagnose things. I would check and fix or replace the rack, examine the tie rod ends, ball joints and bearings and replace anything loose, then learn to do the home alignment with two pieces of string and a carpenters level. It's time consuming but you get a better understanding of the condition of your truck's front end that way and can then be a more knowledgeable consumer of professional alignment services. I took my lifted first gen Titan to two alignment shops before I realized that the camber bolts were stripped on one side and not working properly. The alignment techs didn't catch this.I discovered it while trying to straighten everything up myself with two long bits of mason's line and a four foot level. New camber bolts on that side did the trick. I had to replace the LCA too, though, because one camber bolt was seized in its bushing. The alignment techs had both tried to adjust it and not noticed that this was the case.

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