Okay, I'm hoping this thing is resolved. But before I describe the results, I'd like to give a big KUDOs to the guys in the shop at Crossroads Ford, Kearney, Nebraska, and especially Ray, their alignment tech. The guy is phenomenal, and picked up on things my service shop back home should have. Ray is one of those very particular fellows who has been around awhile and knows his stuff, reminding me a lot of farmers and mechanics I've known from "the Greatest Generation", who cut their teeth during WWII. That kind of guy can be hard to come across in the succeeding generation.
The issue actually came down to the relatively rare nature of my Explorer, a '97 Limited. It has an air suspension, and the front balance sensor's bracket was missing a bolt and the second bolt was loose. The front end was sitting down on its stops, for all intents. This threw everything out of whack, since the out-of-position sensor wasn't feeding the correct balance info to the air shocks, and we'd simply adjusted to it over time, not realizing it wasn't level all around, though I had been suspicious for awhile. I just had too much faith in my long-time shop that had done the alignment last fall, with new brakes and tires, and they'd rechecked it last month before we left home. They really muffed it, totally missing the fact that the front tires splayed too much, even after aligning the rig! Being no expert in that dept., I didn't catch it either, but they should have. Ray couldn't understand how they missed all that was haywire all this time either. There were loose bolts and two missing cams in the front suspension too.
Ray made sure there were no leaks in the air system, and did a complete alignment after cross-rotating the tires. He thought the edge worn ones might cause growling on the pavement from the back, but I've not heard the noise yet. And the rig handles and rides a heck of a lot better than it has in a long time. The proof of the pudding will be if there is no inside edge wear now when towed. Ray said 90% of the problem was caused by the loose sensor, and the rest by the loose or missing other parts. Not to mention my shop had set factory specs to a front end that wasn't square to start with, which made their alignment effort totally ineffective, if not more harmful.
So I'm tagging this thread for anyone researching a similar issue with an Explorer or other toad. And Phil, yes, I had Roadmaster attend to several hitch issues in 2008, after I first noticed wear on the inside edge of my previous tire set; since on our low-back ended coach, the Explorer hitch mount was a couple inches higher than the Monterey's attachment point, it was the first thing I took care of. Unfortunately I thought that was that. At least until these brand new tires scuffed off in 1600 miles of towing. The splayed condition obviously would wear inside if pulled instead of pushed.
So if you're in south central Nebraska and your toad, Ford or otherwise, needs any fixin', get it into Crossroads in Kearney. Though it wasn't cheap, I'm sure as heck glad I did! And I'm hoping my shop back home will step up to attend to their negligence.
-Joel
