I recently got tired of buying tires for the passenger front. the tire tread wears out real bad real fast on the outside edge almost to the center of the tire and on the inner edge of the tire it still has almost new tread. I had an alignment two years ago around time of plate renewal. Did not help at all. Now I notice a very small amount of Play with truck front end jacked up and the play is when you put hand on top of tire it moves a very small amount. Almost like wheel bearing play? but it is only on the top of the tire. Very strange to me. I cannot see any components moving (upper ball joint lower ball joint) or any tie rod ends I did see the rotor move so I tried to tighten the wheel bearing to see if I could make the play disapear and it basically did not. Had state inspection done. Supposedly I have bad upper ball joint ? But the mechanic only shook the wheel with his hands. I thought to tellif ball joint was bad you had to put a long lever under the tire with the load on the botton Bearing and then see if there is movement. And I did and there is no movement?

 

with the tire jacked up if there is no play left and right but there is some movement when you push and pull the top and bottom of the tire then the ball joints most likely are bad.

 

I prefer the push pull method because if only one ball joint has play a bar under the tire may not show any movement at all depending on what part of the tire rests on the bar. If a ball joint tests bad my recommendation is to always replace all the ball joints when one goes bad as the rest usually soon follow.

When a ball joint causes one sided tire wear, the wear should be on the inside of the tire because the top of the tire is allowed to lean inward and that shifts the load to the inside edge at the bottom of the tire. My guess is the toe in needs adjusting or something is bent. I would find a good alignment shop that knows what they are doing and tell them what is going on even if you decide to do the work yourself. When my alignment guy checks mine he tells me what is wrong and I do the work and he doesn't even charge me for the first visit.