Re: Camping World trying to sell me RV with 7yr old tires

With respect to all comments concerning tires I have this expierence with my 2000 Pace Arrow.
When I bought the coach it had less than 6000 miles on the clock.  It had a full set of Goodyear's on it and a spare under neath.  I bought it in 2000 and we used the coach.  I have never put the ''skirts'' over the tires when we park and I have never put the ''dressing stuff'' on my tires.  I do check the tires every time we hit the road and make sure they are up to pressure as required.  (I carry an on board air compressor that will pump them up easily)
I believe it was back in 2009 we were coming home from Calif and popped a tire out in Utah.  I had checked the tires and was going to replace both back tandoms when we got home but we never made it ''home''..    We installed the spare and bought a replacement.  Over in Tenn. we pealed a tread off another one and replaced it.  We did the same ''dance again'' and made it home and replaced the remaining rear tires with Michlins.  The two front tires were new five months earlier.
Here is my point and I am probably wrong.  I check the tires for proper inflation every trip.  I drive slower than the prevailing ''rockets'' and I avoid chuck holes, curbs and large cows and dogs with sharp teeth. In my travels I have seen tires with five thousand miles blown all to pieces because of under inflation.  (I loaned a guy my spare in this situation once).  I am one of those people that believes that if IT AINT BROKE........DONT FIX IT and if it is showing great wear or weather cracks, REPLACE IT ASAP......
One more thing ..........  The rear good Goodyears had about 85 THOUSAND miles on them when they were replaced.  The real advantage I had was that I put almost all of the miles on these tires and they were never ran slack and never abused.
Mind you,  this is my doings and I am probably wrong so DO NOT TAKE MY ADVISE ON THIS.....  (I am the same guy that got about 6 years on the two 6 volt house batteries before replacing them out in Vegas that same trip)

Thank you Nam vets ........  You got no parade but you got my thanks for your service .......cj....

Seajay said:

I am one of those people that believes that if IT AINT BROKE........DONT FIX IT

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So what you are saying is don't bother to replace your tires until they have a blowout? No thanks. I will continue to subscribe to the 7 year rule.

Seajay said:

I am one of those people that believes that if IT AINT BROKE........DONT FIX IT

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SeilerBird said:

So what you are saying is don't bother to replace your tires until they have a blowout? No thanks. I will continue to subscribe to the 7 year rule.

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I have to agree with Seilerbird.  The problem with depending on inspections to determine the need to replace tires is the criteria for an effective inspection is not clear and the indications are that perfectly good tires visually are still subject to age deterioration internally.  But, slowing down, maintaining proper inflation, not overloading and avoiding road hazards can certainly improve your odds.

It is certainly possible to get 9 or more years from an RV tire, just as it is possible you will get only 5.

Michelin used to state that the tire must be dismounted from the rim for an full inspection starting in year 5, since it is quite possible to have cracks or holes that are visible only from the inside. However that verbiage disappeared from their RV Tire Guide back around 2007 and now it just says "inspected by a qualified tire specialist". I always wondered if that was an engineering decision or a marketing one.

Gary,

Can you say Attorney?

Jim: I figure the attorneys would have argued for a full inspection by a certified tire engineer, while the marketing types wanted no inspection requirement at all. The compromise was to let  dealer personnel do it, which is practical and good for the dealer's business.  But that leaves the inspection in the hands of the guy who changes tires daily and doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in me!

Having worked for a large New England tire distributor that also owned 5 tire shops that did a lot of truck work, I would have NO confidence in an inspection done by the guy who changes tires.

ken

Amen, Ken!  Most of those guys aren't going to spot anything other than a blister, gouge or maybe a screw in the tread area. May or may not inspect the backside as well as the exposed area. Or the sidewalls where the duals face each other.  I'm not saying they are all clueless, but the odds aren't all that good either.

The commercial truck tire guys are probably better than the passenger car shops, which often have minimum wage "kids" doing tire mounting. They learn what ever they know from what they hear around the shop, which may or may not be factual.

You know I do not think you could see a tire that is ready to let go from the outside or the inside unless your talking about a tire that is already failing but hasn't exploded yet. The tires I have seen and personally experience a failure all had the tread come off first then the casing coming apart as in exploding.  This delamination (if you can call it that) can and does happen without warning and you can not usually see this is ready to happen unless it already started to come apart, and how lucky can one be to find the problem just before it let go? Replace them at 7 year and be safe!