2000 F250

I've got a crew cab F250 with about 190,000 miles on it. I've only had it about 6 months and I put the last 20,000 miles on it.

Pretty good old pickup - except I put two new tires on the rear (Goodyear with a bit of an aggressive tread) the other day and it seems to roadwalk pretty noticeably now.

I've put a few thousand miles on them - since one guy commented they "needed to be broken in", but they haven't "settled down", yet, if the tires are what are causing it...

I had the front end aligned and checked for anything loose, too, and nothing out of the ordinary there - and the alignment didn't help. There isn't much if any play in the steering wheel...

Could new tires really "cause" roadwalking?? Or do I likely have some other problem?? I never noticed it before...


Thanks for any advice,
Howard

Sorry, what is "Road walking"?

I have the same year F250, with the extended cab.

L.

Sorry - I mean it will drift/jump slightly from side to side going down the highway...

Obviously, wind & truck grooves making the pavement uneven can do that - and those two things make it REALLY noticeable, but it just seems like controlling it is a little on the loose side...

I also put new Monroe shocks on the rear - not really to help with that, but because the old ones were worn out...

Just not sure what else to check - or if F250s in general just do that...

Howard

YES!! I have had the same squiggily feeling, with agressive tread, new tires! In my case it took an awfully lot of miles, before they settled down, and felt normal. I like to run mud& snow tread on the rear end, year round. It helps on grassy hillsides, in the pastures, and after a rain.

Howard, have you checked for any slop in the spring or axle hardware? It wouldn't take much if you have something loose on that rear axle.

Take a good look at the tread design.Mt 3/4 ton Chevy was bad at this on slippery roads.The diagonal bars all pointed in the same diection.We have some roads that have damage by big trucks.You can see the grooves when it rains.If you have spare rims,mount some old tires and see if the problem goes away.

Three things will cause 'dog-tracking'.

An extremely wobbled out rear purchase(s), a sheared indexing bolt at the rear axle and/or a bent frame.

Alignment, tires and shocks have absolutely nothing to do with it. Betcha that trunk has been in one nasty wreck somewhere along the line.

Allan

(quoted from post at 19:24:34 06/20/11)
I've got a crew cab F250 with about 190,000 miles on it. I've only had it about 6 months and I put the last 20,000 miles on it.

Pretty good old pickup - except I put two new tires on the rear (Goodyear with a bit of an aggressive tread) the other day and it seems to roadwalk pretty noticeably now.

I've put a few thousand miles on them - since one guy commented they "needed to be broken in", but they haven't "settled down", yet, if the tires are what are causing it...

I had the front end aligned and checked for anything loose, too, and nothing out of the ordinary there - and the alignment didn't help. There isn't much if any play in the steering wheel...

Could new tires really "cause" roadwalking?? Or do I likely have some other problem?? I never noticed it before...


Thanks for any advice,
Howard

Click to expand...

Is everything in the rear suspension tight? Proper tire pressure? Any weight in the bed? A really agressive tread will misbehave on pavement.

Had a ford 8000 Louisville like that,going down hwy it wants to move into other lane, you pull it back hoping it will react. problem was in the steering box, after I had it repaired good as new.

I think he said it started after he put the tires and shocks on. Bill M

I've got my 2000 F250 4x4 scattered all over the shop right now trying to solve the same problem. The bad behavior became noticeable after putting new tires on it too. My most prominent wander in the road was on acceleration and deceleration. Power on would turn left, power off would turn right. A hilly road with a heavy trailer would be an adventure. Thinking it was the tires, I borrowed a set off another truck for a try. It seemed better but was still loose. The only obvious problem I found was a little slack in a ball joint but not enough to cause this problem.
I tackled the rear suspension first. Found some slack in the left spring bushings that I thought could be the problem. Changed all the spring bushings, sway bar bushings and shocks. This improved things but still had some wander.
Took the front end apart last weekend and have found several problems that could add to its problems. U-bolts were loose, spring and track bar bushings looked rough, the track bar mount to front axle was cracked, ball joints were pretty free, and the Pittman arm on the steering box was a little loose. None of these were obvious or visible until I took them apart. I'm changing everything that moves in the front end now. Should have the rest of the parts in today and hope to have it ready for a test-drive this weekend.
I haven't found any one thing that was bad enough to cause all the problems but a bunch of little thing that could all contribute.
Scott

I drove semi for 38 years Every time we got new tires on tractor they did the same thing.They stopped after about 8,000 miles.We were told the tires had to harden in.

2000 F250's ?? Is is a 4WD ??

There's a trac Bar from the Frame to axle
Plastic coated/cover bushings that hafta be
pressed into the bar, same Bushing at each
end. The Part number is a E5TZ3A116A . Not
rear expensive, & most of the time they don't
look bad but the CANNOT have any Slop in them..

The only other things I can think of is
steering stablizer shock?? & I've seen ball
joints that become too tight..

Track bar is loose on my F350 sd, makes it wander. Can hear it clunk going over bumps, gives the steering a little jiggle.

Are the front and back tires the same? A new aggressive tread on the back and soft worn tires on the front will make it do strange things too. You might try playing with the air pressure.

This is based on the assumption that it was driving fine before the new tires.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, guys!

Mine is 2 wheel drive.

Howard

They are the same size, but the fronts are near the last third of life, so they are definitely more worn.

The rear tires I got WERE more aggressive than I really wanted - but I that was the closest Walmart had to what I had in mind.

I've just been very surprised at this - if it is mainly tires - because I don't know how many sets of tires I wore off the '92 & '94 F250s I had and never ran into this.

But I've also been surprised at how much softer the ride is in this 2000 than the older pickups, too, so I can tell the suspension is a lot different.

I've also suspicioned - like Scott - that it may be the combination of several slightly worn items that add up to a problem. Perhaps the tires just added more to the issue...

I sure appreciate all the comments!

Howard

I have 97 F250 crew cab and I did the same thing because I am in sand,mud and pastures a lot with heavy equipment and a trailer and sometimes empty.I did go back to a matched set of "aggressive" trad tires and my problems went away completely. This truck has 352,250 miles on it by me. I have one of the best tire and front end shops here in east Texas and they worked on it til they discovered that because of the heavy weight of the front end with a 7.3 engine and using "mud grips" on the rear was not an option because of the weight factor. after the change of tires ....problems cured, tracks like a dream. Hope this helps you.
Fred

I had that situation with a new pair of mud and snows on a Ford E-250 years ago. I don't recall the brand, but I drove about 4 miles and went back and had them taken off. It was scary!! Got a different brand and they were fine.

Check the tie rod ends for slop, I had one that drove great until you put a trailer on it then it became squarrlly.