Tight turns scrub tires, and that is not an alignment fault
A truck working local routes spends much of its day turning: into customer lots, around corners, through yards. Every tight turn drags the tires sideways a little, because the wheels on a long truck cannot all roll around the same arc. That scrubbing wears tread.
It matters because scrub wear can look like an alignment problem, and the two have different fixes. Aligning a truck whose tires are wearing from the route will not slow the wear, and blaming the route for a truck that genuinely is out of alignment lets the real fault keep eating tires.
A few things help tell them apart.
Compare trucks on the same work. If every truck on tight local routes wears steer tires the same way, the route is the likely cause. If one truck wears noticeably differently from the others doing the same job, measure that truck.
Look at both steer tires. Scrub from turning tends to wear both sides of the axle. A fault on one side tends to show more on one tire.
Watch the change after new tires. If wear appears fast on fresh tires right after a curb strike, a repair, or new suspension parts, measure before blaming the route.
When to align anyway
After suspension or steering work, after any hard impact, when new steer tires go on, and whenever one truck's wear stands out from its siblings. The national heavy-duty truck alignment page covers what the measurement includes.
The trailer behind a tractor can push it off line, so ask about trailer alignment at the same visit. A vibration rather than a wear pattern is often tire and wheel balancing. Both are here.
About this store
The Owensboro store runs sixteen services and is managed by Paul Wilson.
See the national heavy-duty truck alignment page for all 40 locations.