Tires, TPMS, blowouts, etc.

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Western Slope said:
Don't exceed your placard PSI due to the wheel may not be designed for above that pressure. The only advantage is a stiffer sidewall. I run Load Range E on my 1/2 ton 4x4. It is recommended to use Load Range C. I do it for our volcanic rock roads figuring that the carcass might have to be stronger to hold 80 PSI versus 50, but I run 35.
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How do I know what "Load Range" letter my Y2K RV is or should be?

-Don- Auburn, CA
 
DonTom said:
How do I know what "Load Range" letter my Y2K RV is or should be?

-Don- Auburn, CA
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It's the load capacity that you want to achieve. For example only, not that this is what you should choose...You can run Load Range F tires at 50 PSI, but rated near 3,000 lb capacity at 94 PSI maximum. At 50 PSI though you will have the same 1,940 lb Load Capacity with the Load Range F as you would with Load Range C tires at their maximum 50 PSI.
 
Western Slope said:
It's the load capacity that you want to achieve. For example only, not that this is what you should choose...You can run Load Range F tires at 50 PSI, but rated near 3,000 lb capacity at 94 PSI maximum. At 50 PSI though you will have the same 1,940 lb Load Capacity with the Load Range F as you would with Load Range C tires at their maximum 50 PSI.
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I just checked for psi info. inside my Y2K RV. I looked everywhere possible and there is none. I have labels inside the door jams, but none that mention tires at all.

But I did notice my tires all say they are "Load Range E" right on them.

I am thinking about using 66 lbs in the front and 77 psi in the rear as I cannot find any info on my tires other than the max psi of 80 psi. Does that sound somewhat within reason? If there any place I can find out what I really should be using?

-Don- Auburn, CA
 

tire pressure

i have a jayco class c 27' wondering best tire pressure 225/75r16 when i was driving semi was always told 10# per ply ? is that best or what thankyou dabrown
www.rvforum.net

More information!
 
Today, I drove my Y2K RV from here in Auburn, CA to Reno for the NV smog test (it passed fine). Then I drove it back here to Auburn.

I-80 was cold, the outside temps are cold, deep snow everywhere except on the road itself. This is all near Donnor Summit (7,240' elevation). But I looked at my TPMS display which had a red light, but no audio alarm. I first noticed all the tire PSI's were normal, but the inner back tire had normal PSI but the TPMS said it was at 249°F! All the other tires were below 70°F.

Is it even possible to have that high of a tire temp with no change in PSI?

Anyway, I was thinking about finding a place to stop to check things over, but I decided to first pull the TPMS USB plug out and reboot the TPMS. So I did and then all came back to normal for that wheel, below 70° after the few minutes it took to get all the new tire TPMS signals from the wheel sensors.

So, it was just a TPMS bug. A bug that I didn't even know could happen to just one wheel on a TPMS. I have never had anything like this happen before with my TPMS.

So don't always believe everything a TPMS says. Have others here had such bugs with their TPMS?

-Don- Auburn, CA
 
Laura & Charles said:
I’ve not had that kind of glitch before… never heard of anybody else either. Just wanted to point out that low psi will cause high temps.
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Was the first for me too. And all my (many) vehicles have a GPS. The PSI was reading ~80 at the time, just as were all the other tires. I mean to lower my front tire PSI, but never got around to it and I was in a rush today to get to Reno and back as another snowstorm is on its way (what else is new?).

-Don- Auburn, CA
 
I have the same size tires you do, but my vehicle is bigger, so probably heavier. And I do have the 507 TPMS, made by TST, which has low and high PSI and temperature settings. Also, I set my tires at 80 PSI cold, per the manufacturer's sticker on my motorhome.

I followed the instructions in the manual for setting the lower and upper numbers, and I know that the alarm for temperature does not go off until over 130-135 degrees F, but i need to get manual out and check the numbers for sure. I also checked with Michelin before i set the parameters. In my case of having a tire hit 140 degrees was when I was going down a mountain.

I will get back with you, but I think you need to ditch the Chinese thing and order a really good tire monitor. I know my stress level has been a lot better knowing my tires are OK because the alarm is not going off, even when I am not paying attention to it. And my personal feeling is that tires are the most critical safety item on our rigs!!

Oh, and did you check the batteries in the sensors???
 
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This is the exact model TPMS I have in my Y2K RV, with the thru sensors that do not need to be removed to add air. And it updates in minutes while driving, every hour when RV is sitting, not moving at all.



RV-6-Tire-Flow-Through-Sensor-Tire-Pressure-Monitoring-System.jpg
 
The 4psi rules states that “if your tyres are inflated correctly then the tyre pressure measured when the tyres are hot (after travel) will be 4psi greater than the pressure measured when they were cold (before travel)”. Not sure if this is any help but we used this advice in our Jeep club for tires on our Jeeps since we were running oversized light truck tires. Most of these tires were rated at 50-60 psi min cold but at that pressure a Jeep rides like it is on Solid steel wheels. So we would drop pressure until the pressure would not increase more 4 to 5 psi when hot. Sidewall flex is what increases tire heat that and shows up as increased tire pressure. So a major increase of pressure is an indication of sidewall flex. This why under inflated tires get hot and fail. If your at max pressure and still running hot then the load rating is being exceeded. In the Jeep scenario the load rating was so high for the application, we could decrease pressure and not run hot.
 
DonTom said:
I heard the same for lighter vehicles, but the psi will go up a lot more than that in a motorhome.

-Don- Auburn, CA
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So I have pulled several trailers but we are now in a Class C. Are motorhome blow outs common? I have always been very conscious of my tire pressures but have never had a monitor and do not have one now.
 
Motorhomes are trucks that are close to or right at max loading, so any issue with a tire (age, inflation pressure, damage) are amplified. Then throw in what happens when you have a blowout with a truck that's at or near max loading. So maybe statistically tires don't fail any more on RV's than they do under similar circumstances somewhere else, but incidental damage is almost assured.

You don't know what you don't know - you can check your pressure first thing in the morning and pick up a nail on your way out the driveway. A tire monitor will give you real time pressure info and will alarm when pressures change suddenly or beyond setpoint limits. It's one of the first things I bought after getting my RV and would not travel without one.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM
 
NMJEEP said:
So I have pulled several trailers but we are now in a Class C. Are motorhome blow outs common? I have always been very conscious of my tire pressures but have never had a monitor and do not have one now.
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Class C's have a ridiculous number of rear blowouts, based on my own experience. And it is the only way they fail and with no warning, TPMS or not.

While I have a TPMS in every vehicle, I cannot say it has ever helped in my Class C. All has been fine and the next second a big bang when the tire blows apart, often with damage to the exhaust stuff. IOW, the TPMS tells me after the tire blows.

I hear Class A's use much better tires and have a lot less problems than the "LT" tires used on RVs.

However, I saw what looked like a new Class A suffer a blowout on I-5 several years ago. It looked like the entire thing was totaled out. The damage to the rear was very major.

-Don- Auburn, CA
 
I've had 5 blowouts in my 54 years of driving. I've had 4 sets of Michelin tires and all 5 blowouts were Michelins. They all blew out like a stick of dynamite just over 40K miles in 90+ temperatures. Every tire completely shredded into vertical bands about 5 inches wide. Michelin did recall 100K tires in 2013 because of blowouts. Maybe the problem is fixed. But as of March 20, 2023 Consumer Affairs only rates Michelins 3 of 5 stars. I'm not buying them again.
 
My cousin full-timed about 15 years without a tire pressure monitor, UNTIL he blew a front right tire on his big Class A and swerved into a truck causing $20,000 worth of body damage to his rig. That cause me to get one as well.

The best thing about having one is that you can start out in the morning knowing that your tires are all OK. It also prevents me from driving on some rough pavement and having to get out and checking to make sure there are no obvious low tires or that have bulges and are ready to blow.

And i had two blowouts due to that Michelin tire problem back in 2013 and 2014. First one was a week before the recall and second was a month afterwards. I got 7 new tires from Michelin as a result of that recall. Have not had problems since with Michelins.
 
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