On 6 Jul 2017 09:44:30 -0400, Scott Dorsey wrote:

The alignment was last done about two years ago.
The tires are about a year old.

Done by an expert at a specialty alignment shop? Done by some bozo at the
tire store?

An alignment only shop with something called "Hunger" which was a big red
machine with a computer screen and mirrors which he drove the car on to do
the alignment.

Do you have the paperwork from the last alignment? Did they make dramatic
changes to the alignment?

I wish I had saved the papers. It was about 100 dollars with a coupon as I
recall and it took about a half hour at least, maybe a little bit more but
they had no other cars waiting as I recall.

I don't remember anything unusual but now I see why I would want to archive
such things for reference.

My inclination is to suspect that alignments done by the average tire shop
are apt to make things worse rather than better.

I can't imagine that the technician didn't know how to do his job. It was a
shop where the mother ran the office and he did the work and they were the
only two people there.

My take on this is that it's either "normal" for a car that is driven by
necessity (slowly) on twisty steep (10%) mountain roads for 10 miles (5
each way) every day, or there is something wrong.

This is true, and one person's "slowly" is another person's "way too fast."

I can hear the tires make noise but never screeching like kids do when they
put those round black tire circles in the road pavement. Just a
"scrunching" sound as I go around the turns.

It's a 2WD Toyota 4Runner if that makes any difference.

I don't think I can take the turns much slower than about 20mph as I'm
always the one who pulls over to let others pass me on that road.

I just want to know if the road curves are the problem, why the rear tires
don't show the same outside feathering that the fronts show at 4K miles.

However, I might consider investing in higher performance tires next time
when these wear out. They may or may not last longer, but they will sure
make driving those twisty roads more enjoyable and more safe too.

The tires are TREADWEAR = 380 if that's what you mean by "performance".