I recently had a set of Goodyear Duratracs in 255/75/r17 installed and I've noticed that I have a slight drift to the right when driving, more so in the right lane but sometimes on the left on a two lane highway. Wheels are 17x8 Ultra Motorsports, and no lifts or anything. This was not a problem last week before the swap with my stock tires. 11k miles on the 2014 JK 2dr since I bought it new. Tire pressures are at 35 psi. Any idea what's causing this? Or what happens if it's not addressed?
New Tires, Now Drifting Right
- Thread starter bpack325
- Start date
That is typical due to the larger tire and more aggressive tread. Mine tends to drift left.
Also look at dropping the pressure down. To find the right pressure do the chalk test. Rub sidewalk chalk across the width of your tread and drive straight for about 300 yards and check the chalk wear. Deflate until you get even wear. I run about 28 PSI on the 35 NITTO Trail Grapplers.
Also look at dropping the pressure down. To find the right pressure do the chalk test. Rub sidewalk chalk across the width of your tread and drive straight for about 300 yards and check the chalk wear. Deflate until you get even wear. I run about 28 PSI on the 35 NITTO Trail Grapplers.
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Should I be concerned with premature wear of the tire or steering components? It's not a severe drift, but it is a new development.
OverlanderJK
Resident Smartass
If it happened with the stock tires as well then it would have nothing to do with the new tires.
The wheels were changed out in August, and I've been running the stock SRA tires until the swap last week. The issue didn't surface until after the tires were changed. Previously my Wrangler was pretty dead on in a straight line. Steering is a little "floaty", but I attributed that to the different tread and compound of the new tires. I've come from 10 years of Subarus so this has been quite a learning experience.
I've got it all sorted now, here was the breakdown:
I took it to the Goodyear installer on East 2nd St in Oswego, where they did an alignment and adjusted the toe angle. That helped the drift, but at 55 + mph I got a great deal of vibration from floor to steering wheel. I went back yesterday when the spare I ordered came in and did a road test and re-balancing.
Turns out that the shop that installed the duratracs initially (not Goodyear) used an old technique of counterbalancing clip on weights that sort of masked a less than stellar balancing job. In addition, they'd moved a wheel to the back as a spare but didn't notice a wheel spacer was still attached, meaning out of four wheels on the ground only 3 were spaced correctly. And the shop lost a centering ring in the process.
Goodyear rebalanced everything, installed the duratrac tire on the spare, and noticed that rim was defective, something the previous shop hadn't caught. These were the Ultra Motorsports "Bolt" wheels in 17 x 8 I had put on in August.
So, for the tire mounted and balanced plus road hazard protection plans put me at $346. Considering the work that went into it and the fact that it runs great now I'm pretty happy. As for the defective rim, they're an authorized installer from Tire Rack so I should be able to get that one switched out no problem.
I took it to the Goodyear installer on East 2nd St in Oswego, where they did an alignment and adjusted the toe angle. That helped the drift, but at 55 + mph I got a great deal of vibration from floor to steering wheel. I went back yesterday when the spare I ordered came in and did a road test and re-balancing.
Turns out that the shop that installed the duratracs initially (not Goodyear) used an old technique of counterbalancing clip on weights that sort of masked a less than stellar balancing job. In addition, they'd moved a wheel to the back as a spare but didn't notice a wheel spacer was still attached, meaning out of four wheels on the ground only 3 were spaced correctly. And the shop lost a centering ring in the process.
Goodyear rebalanced everything, installed the duratrac tire on the spare, and noticed that rim was defective, something the previous shop hadn't caught. These were the Ultra Motorsports "Bolt" wheels in 17 x 8 I had put on in August.
So, for the tire mounted and balanced plus road hazard protection plans put me at $346. Considering the work that went into it and the fact that it runs great now I'm pretty happy. As for the defective rim, they're an authorized installer from Tire Rack so I should be able to get that one switched out no problem.