Originally Posted By: grampi
If it were an alignment problem, wouldn't I also experience premature tire wear? I don't have this problem at all.......
Not necessarily. Tire wear is caused mostly by cornering and if you don't do a lot of cornering, the tires will wear slowly.
Besides, "misalignment" is a matter of degree. "A little off the target value" just takes longer for the symptoms to arrive than "a lot off the target value".
Originally Posted By: grampi
...... In fact, I usually get more mileage than the tires are actually rated for. The last set of tires I had were replaced at 70K (they were 70K rated tires) and they still at least 5K worth of tread left on them. One tire blew, so I just installed a new set. It could be a lack of frequent enough rotations which I'm really bad about. Because I put so many miles on my car (2500-3000 a month) I sometimes go 13K-15K before I rotate them. .......
So we've just comfirmed some of my conjectures - little cornering, rotation.
The rotation issue is more a case preventative maintenance. If you have a misalignment condition, rotating the tires just postpones the issue.
You may ask: Why only one tire?
When you get irregular wear, the irregularity builds slowly and gains speed the more irregular it becomes. The other tires are also developing irregular wear, but there will always be one that is worse - and some folks tend to focus on the "one", and not notice the others.