Excessive wear on one tire

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

... It seems that the frame manufacturer has an ongoing problem with this. It would be a good idea if the quality control person at Escape personally examined each connection before the body is mounted on the frame.

The brakes are part of the axle assemblies, and the axles are apparently mounted by the frame supplier, but are they wired by the frame manufacturer? If so, what would they be wired to, given that most of the wiring goes to the body? My guess is that ETI is connecting the brake wires.

Maybe the quality control inspector checking this wiring is the same one who is checking winterizing valves..

[Iowa Dave]

I understand. I just thought the brakes part of the loom was split off to the brakes areas. Maybe not. Reminds me of the old government replay when asked who was responsible for a mistake. We would cross out arms and point at the two people at our side and say “He is.”
Iowa Dave

[Ron in BC]

Originally Posted by BILLB

Also, none of my tires were balanced from the factory.

Nothing unusual about that. Anytime that I've purchased trailer tires from a variety of stores and asked for them to balanced I've gotten the same response. "We don't normally balance trailer tires."

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

The brakes are part of the axle assemblies, and the axles are apparently mounted by the frame supplier, but are they wired by the frame manufacturer? My guess is that ETI is connecting the brake wires.

They pretty much have to as the pigtail connections can't be done by the axle provider nor can the ground connection to the frame.

Both connections have proven to problematic in the past and I especially don't care for the sheet metal screw into frame connection.

Ron

[JohnK]

On our trailer all four brake wire bundles were suspended from the frame by the ground wire fastened to the frame. The ground wire had 2 functions: grounding and suspending. Dexter did not pull the ground wire out of the bundle and use it to suspend the brake wire bundle by fastening it to the frame. Dexter never sees the trailer frames.
John

[Emsabh]

Found this thread, have to detecting the same issue of one of the tires being excessively worn compared to the remaining three. In fact, it looks like it’s about ready to go, with the steel strands being exposed on the interior side of the wheel. This is on the driver side front axle. It’s a 2019 trailer, I’m assuming this too has Dexter axles.

[Ron in BC]

Wow, I caught mine a little sooner than that.

I don't know what the heck is happening with Dexter axles. Yours is a 2019 the same as mine. My 2014 never had any issues and there's been a lot of folks with newer trailers that have reported similar issues.

Dexter is good to deal with and that's what ETI will advise you to do. They sent me a new axle and I installed it myself and for others they've sent it to a service place that installed it for the owner.

Dexter have been good to deal with but I wonder how long that'll continue as more and more claims come in.

Ron

[Emsabh]

I’m relatively mechanically not inclined, so more than likely I’ll have this done at a repair center locally. I do find it mildly amusing that an axle could be defined as a consumable. Hopefully, my other vehicles don’t have consumable axles.

[Chamberman]

Don't assume the axle is bad....
Check the bearings for proper tensioning. I bought our 2019 used this past spring. The prior owner replaced 2 tires due to high wear. The remaining two are wearing normally. I pulled the wheels to repack the bearings (this had never been done since new) back in May and all 4 wheel bearings had excessive play in them. Was this the cause of the high wear rate? Don't know yet, but it wasn't helping.

[Rossue]

Originally Posted by Emsabh

Found this thread, have to detecting the same issue of one of the tires being excessively worn compared to the remaining three. In fact, it looks like it’s about ready to go, with the steel strands being exposed on the interior side of the wheel. This is on the driver side front axle. It’s a 2019 trailer, I’m assuming this too has Dexter axles.

Trying to be kind here: how did you not notice this tire was wearing before it got to this point? Do you check inflation when you're out on a trip? Have you ever done a bearing service?

[Emsabh]

Originally Posted by Rossue

Trying to be kind here: how did you not notice this tire was wearing before it got to this point? Do you check inflation when you're out on a trip? Have you ever done a bearing service?

Thanks, appreciate the comment. I did a walk around the trailer each time we took it out. The last trip was a month ago, around 600 miles total. After returning, I covered the tires; at that time they all appeared the same. I took it out this past week, drove 30 miles to a worksite and parked it. Drove back last night and just parked. Saw the damage this morning.

I have greased the axle according to directions I found on the web, but have not done any bearing service. There's a total of about 5-6K miles on the unit. We are the original owners; it was an inventory unit we bought back in early 2020.

[brroberts]

I’ve got an axel on my 2021 I’m watching too.