mdfuller said:
Any opinions on these tires? Any opinions on the Steeltex tires?
I traded a '98 29' Tioga earlier this year and now drive a 34' Class A. I bought the Tioga used -- and at the time had around 14,000 miles on it. I guess I had it for 4 or 5 years. It had the original Firestone's Steeltex tires when I bought it -- and they looked great. However, comma . . .
Altogether, I had 5 rear wheel blowouts -- all on long, lonesome highways. 3 of them I was able to limp to the next town on the remaining good tires on each rear side -- the other two needed help from tow trucks "many" miles and bucks away. Also, on those last two, the builders of the Tioga decided to place electric and propane lines in the rear wheel wells. On both occasions, the tread came off the tire ripping all propane lines out on that side of the rig all the way forward to the tank, plus all electric going through that area (under the frig). Not a fun day sitting half way between Needles and Barstow,CA on the 40 looking at my major propane line lying on the ground along side of a number of electric lines -- with only a single signal blip on my cell phone.
I won't bore you with all the grief I had -- or the times I was forced to buy an odd brand tire due to location -- and the problems those replacements caused. But did want to mention that the first replacements of Firestone's with same size and rated Firestone's -- I noticed the tread was wider. When I took the rig back to the dealer, he explained that they had widened the tread because tests showed they were not wide enough for the GVWR of the Tioga. So to be on the safe side, I purchased 2 more of the wider versions.
Anyway, when another of the "other than Firestone" versions blew (this time ripping propane and electric out again), I bought new Firestone's again. I noticed though that the Firestone dealer in Las Vegas sold me tires with a different name -- Transforce HT's sounds familiar. He explained that the earlier (tho wider tread) upgrades were "still" not up to the load of a 29' Tioga. Finally, after having 4 of the latest Firestone's on the rear -- I never had another problem, and the ride was substantially improved -- and that included 1 1/2 trips from NCal to Austin, TX.
The Tioga's mentioned here are shorter than the one I had -- plus mine was on a 450 chassis. However, that chassis and the position of the rear axle was just "not" a good design -- and even tho I was never over the GVWR, didn't have adequate tires until I was ready to trade. Also, I would not buy anything other than the latest Firestone's for a Tioga. Reason being that other manufacturers have not had the extensive testing experience with the Tioga that Firestone has had with Tons of unhappy campers such as myself.