Tires

3/23/2009

Tire without a doubt are a critical component of making your RV rig safe. For a motorhome, truck or car, you life depends on those rubber donuts on your wheels. For your trailer, everything you own depends on the tires. Far to often we hear discussions on tires that start with either price or Brand, neither is important to a tire selection.

RV Weighing

The critical first task for tire selection is to determine what weight has to be carried by the tires. The manufacturer's dataplate is a terrible place to start.

The first general rule for a RV trailer is that the standard tires delivered with the trailer are too small in load capacity. For cost reasons, the manufacturer will often put tires with only enough load capacity for the shipped weight of the trailer. Your stuff, sometimes up to two tons, was not included. There is a greater chance that a motorhome comes equipped with tires with enough load capacity for the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) because the regulations are higher.

Weighing of individual wheels is the only way to know the real tire load capacity you need. Read why at RV Weighing.

Tire Selection

Typically the tires delivered with RVs have just enough load capacity. Sometimes the just enough is only for the delivered weight of the RV and does not include the RV and your stuff (sometimes two tons). Information of how the rating system of tires and size consideration is covered in Tire Selection.

Tire Size Change

We changed the tire size on Tige for greater margin of load capacity. Read about the process in Tire Size Change.

Tire Inflation

Once you have adequately sized tires, the next thing to do is to keep the tires properly inflated. The proper inflation for tires is not always the maximum allowed pressure marked on the sidewall of the tire. If your have put tires with a higher load capacity, maximum pressure can actually be too much. Read what and why in Tire Inflation.

Tire Pressure Monitor

Now with the right tires and the correct inflation pressure, the next step is to monitor that pressure while you are driving. The inflation pressure can be correct when you leave but things can happen. The biggest concern is loss of pressure. Loss of pressure results in loss of load capacity, followed by heat buildup and finally tire failure. Even if you really checked tire pressure at every rest break, the two hour interval can be enough to cause tire damage. A tire pressure monitoring system will give you real time readings of your tire pressures and give you a warning so that you can take corrective action. Read more at Tire Pressure Monitor System.

How Old are Your Tires?

There is a useful life for RV tires of 5-6 year years. The reasons for that tire life are covered in Tire Age.

Lug Nut Torque

The wheels on trailers are subject to more side load that motorhome, trucks and cars. The lug nut torque on all of them should be regularly checked by is especially important for trailer. While lug nut torque may seem to be a simple issue, there are some things to be concerned about and they are discussed in Lug Nut Torque.

Tire Blowout

One of the reason you do all this for tire is to prevent tire damage and possible blowouts, and the things that happen from blowouts. We had a blowout on Tige and this is the results, Blowout.

Disclaimer: The information in this site is a collection of data we derived from the vendors and from our personal experiences. This information is meant as a learning guide for you to make your own decisions Best practices and code should always be followed. The recommendations we make are from our personal experiences and we do not receive any compensation for those recommendations.