Uneven tire tread and thumping

Hey guys. I was looking at my tires today, and noticed that the rear passenger side tire is basically bald, while the other three are not.

I recently also noticed a thumping sound while driving - you can hear it and also feel it as you go. It is definitely not under the hood and the thumps get faster and slower as the truck speeds up/slows down.

Any advice on what to look for? Planning on getting new tires put on, but if there is something else of concern I’d like to look at that too.

2012 1500 4.7L btw

First thought
OVER or UNDER inflated tire(s)
Just my thought as I am not a Mech.

Check the tire for a bulge, a sign of tread separation. It sometimes isn't as obvious as you would think, requiring jacking up the tire off the ground and spinning it for inspection.

@Flip-er and @18CrewDually i guess my bigger question is - would replacing the tires and making sure they’re equally filled be sufficient? Or is there potentially some issue with the suspension, alignment, or other.

If there is potentially some other issue, what should I be checking?

The right rear tire is your drive tire, it spins a little each time the truck takes off, especially if taking off in a corner.
I don't mean the tire spins a whole rotation, just an half inch or so.

Most bubbles go unnoticed, because the bubble is on the inside, it usually happens if you hit something that was laying on the roadway.

What were your findings so far with the recommendations already given?

Tires and shocks .

mjf84 said:

Hey guys. I was looking at my tires today, and noticed that the rear passenger side tire is basically bald, while the other three are not.

I recently also noticed a thumping sound while driving - you can hear it and also feel it as you go. It is definitely not under the hood and the thumps get faster and slower as the truck speeds up/slows down.

Click to expand...

Rotate your tires more often If you have an open differential in particular that passenger rear tire is always going to scratch a little bit on right turns. Since we drive on the right-hand side of the road in the Americas, we make sharp right turns at intersections and less sharp left turns. We also tend to put more wear on the right-hand suspension and tires because roads tend to accumulate damage and weathering more on the edge than the center. It may not seem like much at any given moment but it does add up.
You can reduce the wear on your passenger rear tire by coasting through right turns, but realistically nobody's going to change their habits ever so it's pointless to talk about. Assuming you don't already have a limited slip differential you could install one to reduce the amount of wheelspin on acceleration - you will still sometimes drag a tire on sharp corners if you apply power but for a different reason and generally very little. That's a pretty big investment if you don't have other reasons to want to install it (improved off road performance, for example)
The thumping could be a failing driveshaft carrier bearing or it could be failing shock absorber or link bushings responding to a badly out of balance or out of round tire.

Thanks all. Been away all week for work, gonna be my project for tomorrow and I’ll let y’all know how it’s looking

Hey y’all, few updates. I got two new rear tires (needed them anyways) and got the tires balanced, no luck stopping the sound from either.

I spun the wheels to check the wheel bearings and seemed to find no problems there. I checked out the driveshafts and found no visible issues, although they’re plenty rusty so it’s a bit hard to tell. I looked at the CV joints and U joints and nothing jumped out, but I wasn’t really sure what to look for.

I feel fairly confident it’s not the tires as 2/4 are new and they’re balanced. Any thoughts on more specifically looking into the drivetrain? Also, any outside guesses on other things like brakes or e brake that could be the issue?