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2007-2008 S331 Sportruck For discussion of the F-150 platform "Thunder."

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  #1  
Old 01-31-2009
burnouts331 burnouts331 is offline
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Default Front tire wear

My truck has always had a slight vibration in the steering wheel at almost any normal driving speed. The truck will not stay on a straight line for long if the hands come off the stering wheel. Most of the time it will prefer to pull to the right, but I think that is because most of the highways are sloped down at an angle. It does pull to the left sometimes if the road is sloped that way. With saying all that my front left tire had noticably more wear in the innerside tread that the front right tire. I made sure to keep the air pressure the same in both. I then went and got the tires rotated, balanced and aligned. The guys at the tire shop said the ball joints are in good shape and that the tires only needed a slight adjustment in alignment. After leaving their shop the steering still has a slight vibration and the truck will not hold a straight line any longer than it did before I took it to them. Is this normal or do I need to get something else checked? I need to find out soon because these tires are not cheap.
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  #2  
Old 02-01-2009
hattrick hattrick is offline
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My BFG fronts had cords showing by 15k miles! I had it aligned (after spending $800 for two tires) and it is doing much better now.
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  #3  
Old 02-01-2009
Light02atl Light02atl is offline
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These 23" wheels and tires are a NIGHTMARE to keep aligned and balanced. There have been many complaints of premature wear, alignment every few thousand miles, and some people never can get them balanced perfectly.
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  #4  
Old 02-01-2009
hennie hennie is offline
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the tire size it what makes it ride like you're drunk.
it's hard to keep them in a straight line, they are actually too wide for a set of front wheels, i guess up front 275 wide would have been enough'
at least that's what i feel

Hennie
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  #5  
Old 02-02-2009
SaleenKS SaleenKS is offline
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My truck does alright on the interstate, but on an old blacktop country road Driving drunk is the perfect way to describe the ride. Maybe have the wheel bearings checked out I heard that had something to do with the tire wear. The 15" rotors are hell on the wheel bearings.
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  #6  
Old 04-23-2009
teamgsxr teamgsxr is offline
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The first thing I would reccomend to everyone owning a S331 is to align them. All the cars that left the Irvine plant were never aligned. Not even the toe was set. Most trucks went through front tires in 5-7k, some as little as 2k. Irvine did not have a alignment machine.
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  #7  
Old 04-23-2009
hennie hennie is offline
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that might be a good idea since I only have 400 mls on the odometer
can any of guy's get me the correct allignment specs?

Thanks,
Hennie
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  #8  
Old 04-23-2009
teamgsxr teamgsxr is offline
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Have it aligned to factory Ford specs.
Here they are.

FRONT: L & R are the same.
CAMBER: -1.0 (Range 0.6)
CASTER: 3.1 (Range 5.1)
TOE: 0.00 (Range 0.20)

CROSS CAMBER: -0.8 (Range 0.8)
CROSS CASTER: -1.2 (Range 0.4)
CROSS TOE: 0.0 (Range 0.4)
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  #9  
Old 04-23-2009
hennie hennie is offline
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thanks a lot, will have that done tomorrow, I'll keep y'all posted how much it is off.

Hennie
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  #10  
Old 04-27-2009
Rogun Rogun is offline
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My tires were about ready to explode by 10k miles. I could see the metal in the tires on the inner thread! The wheels definitely were not alligned from the factory. But even after alignment it still feels like Im drunk while driving.
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  #11  
Old 04-27-2009
teamgsxr teamgsxr is offline
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That's due to the wide foot print of the tire. If you can, have the alignment shop put as much caster as possible into the truck. If not, it feels like your riding a tricycle with the handlebars backwards. It wants to grab every rut and is very twitchy.
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  #12  
Old 04-27-2009
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2007SaleenS331 2007SaleenS331 is offline
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I had my buddy that does alignments, install the camber/caster adjuster eccentrics in the lower control arms. He got the alignment right on. The big tires still like to follow the ruts, but it handles much better then it did.
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Old 08-29-2009
burnouts331 burnouts331 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 2007SaleenS331 View Post
I had my buddy that does alignments, install the camber/caster adjuster eccentrics in the lower control arms. He got the alignment right on. The big tires still like to follow the ruts, but it handles much better then it did.
Do we have to install the camber/caster adjusters in order to get the alignment right. The guys that aligned my tires to start with didn't do it and after 5k more miles my front tires are wearing just as bad. I took the truck back to them and they said I probably needed the adjusters but they did the first alignment without them and hoped it would work. Wtf? I guess they think tires are cheap these days. So from there I went to another alignment shop and he said that the newer model fords didn't need the caster/camber adjusters in order to align the tires. What is the proper way to align them. Oh the first alignment shop told me the adjusters would go on the upper control arms, not the lower control arms.
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  #14  
Old 08-30-2009
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2007SaleenS331 2007SaleenS331 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by burnouts331 View Post
Do we have to install the camber/caster adjusters in order to get the alignment right. The guys that aligned my tires to start with didn't do it and after 5k more miles my front tires are wearing just as bad. I took the truck back to them and they said I probably needed the adjusters but they did the first alignment without them and hoped it would work. Wtf? I guess they think tires are cheap these days. So from there I went to another alignment shop and he said that the newer model fords didn't need the caster/camber adjusters in order to align the tires. What is the proper way to align them. Oh the first alignment shop told me the adjusters would go on the upper control arms, not the lower control arms.
In order to get a proper alignment, you absolutely need those camber/caster adjusters installed. I used to be an alignment tech for 8 years before I specialized in automatic transmission rebuilding. Who ever told you that is on "crack"!! I have 16,000 miles on my original tires and they still look good. Best of luck finding a good alignment shop.
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  #15  
Old 11-22-2009
burnouts331 burnouts331 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by teamgsxr View Post
Have it aligned to factory Ford specs.
Here they are.

FRONT: L & R are the same.
CAMBER: -1.0 (Range 0.6)
CASTER: 3.1 (Range 5.1)
TOE: 0.00 (Range 0.20)

CROSS CAMBER: -0.8 (Range 0.8)
CROSS CASTER: -1.2 (Range 0.4)
CROSS TOE: 0.0 (Range 0.4)

Still having trouble with tires wearing and truck shaking. Back in August I had the caster and camber adjusters installing and my tires aligned to the specs above. The toe was off on my left front tire which was probably causing the feathering on the inner front left tire. The right front tire had too much camber in it also. After I had it aligned the tech told me the tires would still continue with the same wear pattern unless I put new tires on the front. Will someone tell me if this is true or not. Well after another 1K miles I rotated my left front and rear tires - the tires on the right side look to be in good shape. The truck has always shaken abit at highway speeds more than any other vehicle I have ever ridden in even after having my tires rotated and balanced the first time. Now that I had my left side rotated and balanced again it shakes even more at highway speeds. I mean cruising at 60-70mph my cheeks on my face will even shake. Why would my truck be doing this since I just balanced the left side?
Another thing is when I got my truck aligned in August I went to pick it up at 5 in the afternoon and they were closing. They had the alignment done but I noticed my steering wheel was not straight any more, it was turned about 20 degrees right. Well I brought it back and they straightened it when they rotated my tires this time. He said the alignment would stay the same but I am wondering if he threw the alignment off when he straightened the wheel and this to be causing the vibration. I just want to get this fixed before it damages my suspension or something and there are not too many people that deal with these big wheels around here. I hate to put new tires on before the problem gets fixed and have them shaking and wearing prematurely.
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  #16  
Old 11-26-2009
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2007SaleenS331 2007SaleenS331 is offline
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Sounds like you might have a seperated tire from getting feathered out from being out of alignment. Once a tire gets feathered out, it will continue to wear until the cords start popping thru. I am not sure that you are aware that the front and rear wheels have a different offset, so If you are rotating your tires from front to rear....they would have to be dismounted and remounted on the correct wheel. I am sure that you will have to get new tires to correct the super shakes.
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  #17  
Old 11-26-2009
burnouts331 burnouts331 is offline
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Took my truck back to the alignment shop and had them check the balance on my wheels again. It was off balance by 13 ounces which is huge. While they were doing the balance check we could hear something rattling around inside the tire. It was the low pressure gauge that had come aloose causing the tire to be off balance. We took it out then rebalanced the tire and now it drives like new. I am gonna take out all these low pressure gauges in the future and replace them with the ones that go on the valve stem. It seems like I read that somewhere on these forums that we could do that.
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