Tire cupping - DuraTracs!

I said this in the "Do you let tire shops/service shops drive your vehicle?" thread earlier...seems relevant to this one.

I had a balance issue with my Duratrac 285's after about 1000 miles. At close to 60mph, it had the shakes pretty bad. Soon after, doing some routine maintenance, I decided to rotate the tires in an X pattern. Like magic, the major shakes at highway speed are gone. I didn't mess with the weights, although on one tire I want to every time I look at it.
One wheel has 4 of these lined up on the outside...

images

I didn't follow the other thread but it is a no no to rotate tires in an x pattern. The only time I would rotate them like would be to correct the orientation if they were directional tires.
 
I said this in the "Do you let tire shops/service shops drive your vehicle?" thread earlier...seems relevant to this one.

I had a balance issue with my Duratrac 285's after about 1000 miles. At close to 60mph, it had the shakes pretty bad. Soon after, doing some routine maintenance, I decided to rotate the tires in an X pattern. Like magic, the major shakes at highway speed are gone. I didn't mess with the weights, although on one tire I want to every time I look at it.
One wheel has 4 of these lined up on the outside...

images

I bought tires at a place with a crappy spin balancer. I bounced home. Went to a place with a road force balancer and afterwards went back and talked to the guy who did the balance. He did laugh at all the weights he took off. Your situation made me think of it.
 
I have my weights on the inside (can't stand those ruining the look of the wheel on the outside) and I've never had any issues with balancing but I'll have to go check how many weights are on each wheel.
 
I thought when rotating tires your only supposed to rotate them so they're turning in the same direction as they were before? Don't all tires prefer a certain rotational direction?
 
I thought when rotating tires your only supposed to rotate them so they're turning in the same direction as they were before? Don't all tires prefer a certain rotational direction?

Not all tires are directional, although that seems to be more and more common lately.
 
I'm very familiar with directional tires and how to rotate them.
Duratracs have no direction specified on the sidewall so I rotated 'X' and the mad shake at 60-ish went away. Case closed for me!
 
OK - final update....

I did the chalk test and stuck with 45 psi all around. In all honesty I think that's the single largest contributor to my issues. That being said, thanks to all who suggested it might be my suspension. I did in fact use that rationalization to pull the trigger on my latest purchase. I'm the proud new owner of a complete OME suspension kit.

Front: 881 with 90004 Rear: 906 with 60028

Mounted 'em up yesterday. Still sore today. I'm too old to be crawling under my truck all afternoon. Love the outcome, though. It's a rough ride with the combination of OME and e-rated tires, but I like it that way! :thumb3: We'll see how my tires wear from here.

On a side note, I used a trim packer on both sides of the rear hoping it would give me the slightest bit of rake. It didn't. I'm at 37 1/2" on all four corners. I'll see how it settles but may be adding more trim packers later. Anyone have negative rake with my combination?
 

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