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Thread: What Tires???????

  1. #21
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Montrose
    Posts
    188

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    My two cents. I put new M brand steer tire on. Had them spin balanced and they drive great. As for the rear drives I will still use M. Have you ever seen the damage done when a heavy loaded tire the size we have blows out.
    Our coaches may be all steel but I don't want to test how strong it is.
    Larry W
    00 Royale Coach

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Santa Barbara
    Posts
    3,177

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    Jon. I have had blow outs on front and back tires which were 5 years old so no matter what anyone says, I'd rather be safe than sorry. My Liberty has 365/22.5 on the front and its a s m o o t h ride. My Lexa Country Coach had Toyo tires and they were great as well.
    Incidently, when I replaced the rest of my tires after the 2nd blow out on my 1st Coach, it was discovered all the sidewalls were cracking on the inside of the tires (facing in)which I could not see. So much for the Sun Theory. Gary
    Gary & Lise Deinhard, 2003 Elegant Lady Liberty, Dbl slide

  3. #23
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    ON THE ROAD IN THE SOUTH
    Posts
    2,825

    Exclamation Observant & Astute

    See, it's just as if IMRE never left.............

    Jerry, You sure astute! When and why did Imre leave?? I see his name is not in the members list.
    Maybe he went to LURKER status?

    JIM

  4. #24
    Just Plain Jeff Guest

    Default Tires.

    Well, this is a mixture of folklore, other opinions very little fact and my own ideas about tires.

    This is not a new topic of conversation, one of which was on prevost-stuff in the fall of 2003: http://www.prevost-stuff.com/cgi-bin...=000070#000005

    My over-riding thought about tires on a camper is that you have 25 tons of machine (not to forget it is carrying your family, not oranges) hurdling down the public highway at perhaps 60+ mph, with 8 square feet of contact with the pavement. My conservative bent is that I want to have the very best in tires for that valuable cargo, and cost isn't the primary consideration in safety.

    Tires are not a commodity item, some are better than others (opinion). We'd had Goodyears on our first coach which were speed and load rated, replaced with Michelin and it was a completely different riding and handling coach after the Michelins.

    Dry rot begins on the inside of the tire and works its way to the outside. A visual inspection of the outside of the tire is useless, as it may be too late by the time you see cracks.

    In the Spring, driving north on I-95, it is typical to see many RVs and trailers off the side of the road in Southern Georgia with blowouts. That's about the point where tires start to heat up and fail. Seems as if those folks figured on just one more trip with the ol' tires.

    Had a long conversation with Prevost Car about tires. It is their opinion that since the Prevost (made outside this country) was designed, tested and equipped OEM with Michelin, they recommend only Michelin tires for Prevost buses.

    During the Liberty PDI, any tire that is equal to or >5 years of age or with excessive tread wear is automatically replaced.

    In lurking around some charter operators, I have seen various brands; notably the Sumitomo for seated coaches. Many operators are replacing tires on lease once a year due to mileage and liability concerns instead of the issues being discussed here.

    Entertainer coaches routinely change out their tires at about 100K miles, as that usually comes out to about once a year, due to the failure is not an option if you gotta-be-where-you-said-you'd-be. Guess rock stars don't like to be delayed or inconvienced.

    Here's a fragment of memory: When the IFS was introduced on the H3, I guess around 2001 or so, there were problems with tire wear and Prevost redid a lot of front ends, requiring a parts upgrade, welding and so on. The protocol also called for replacing the front tires to customers at no charge. The tires appeared unevenly worn, but were considered to be useable.

    I bought some for $50 each and replaced the Goodyears on the old coach.

    So, take any/all of this with whatever grain of sand you wish. The greatest lesson learned was making sure to look around the back of service facilities. You never know what you just may find.

  5. #25
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Alexandria
    Posts
    2,161

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    Jon,

    As you noticed at POG III my passenger Tag was showing some cupping. To get ready for the summer season I'm thinking of replacing that tire.

    Are you still happy with the AH-SO imports. If you don't mind sharing, what price did you pay? And can I get away with having different brands on the tags.

    Thanks

    Mike

  6. #26
    dalej Guest

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    Mike, I put a chineese tire on a tag and it looks enough different that not sure having a mismatch is worth the big difference. I paid 275 for a r12, so a 315 will cost more.

    It's getting tough to make good decisions when there is such a price difference.

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    anytown
    Posts
    8,908

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    Mike,

    I cannot say for sure that a Chinese tire is as good as a Michelin, yet.

    So I had two new Michelins put on my steers, I moved my 2 year old Michelins from the steer axle to the tag and then put the Chinese on the drive.

    I would put new Michelins on the steers on your coach and move the steers to the tag. I say that assuming the current steers have no unusual wear. If they have any wear pattern, such as cupping, then I would put them on the drive. If the tires haven't aged out and there is still decent tread, put the ones with the cupping on the drive and they will straighten out.

    I recognize I am suggesting the most expensive method if you do have to replace the tags, but until the comfort level on Chinese tires is equal to Michelin I am suggesting what I consider the safest choice.

    Unfortunately tires are influenced by oil prices, so our prices may not be today's prices. For reference we paid about $612 for the Michelins and about $325 for the shanghai specials (Double Coin). That is for the 315 size.

    FWIW, I use Equal, and check tire pressures faithfully. If you do that you should get between 130,000 and 150,000 out of your tires if they have not aged out first.

  8. #28
    Just Plain Jeff Guest

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    Jon says: "..I..check tire pressures faithfully..."

    Is it true that you check them every four hours and keep a chart near the pit so that you can develop a stochastic statistical analysis (also recording ambient temperature, relative humidity and barometric pressure?).

    If you do, then you could have a pretty good handle on whether or not your take-out tires are holding air at the same rate as the ones you are supposed to have on your camper?

    Just asking.

    BTW: Still have all my fingers. It's the marbles I am losing.

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    anytown
    Posts
    8,908

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    JPJ may be just busting my chops, but over far too many years of checking tire pressures I have developed some ideas of where my pressure losses come from.

    The two most likely and common places my tires lose pressure is the valve core, and the place where the valve stem goes through the rim. To address the first I have always used good caps, and now I have the spring loaded caps that do not require removal to check or air up a tire. They seem to work much better than conventional caps as a second seal.

    As far as the valve stem seal at the rim, there is no easy fix. If I notice a tire always needs a few more PSI, I soap around the seal to confirm that is the leak, and then I have to deflate the tire and either tighten it up, or replace the rubber seal completely. The good news is I don't have to remove the tire from the wheel as long as I can push the tire down (I use a hydraulic jack under my truck bumper to hold it) and get at the valve stem from the rear.

    I always use the same gauge so I am not dealing with pressure variations from gauge to gauge. I also always fill my tires to the exact pressure each time so if one of my tires always needs more air than the others I know I have to find the reason for the leak. That helped me find a nail that had gone through the inner sidewall once and that I did not find by looking around the tread of the tire.

    The Chinese tires hold air as well as the Michelins. They may turn out to hold air better because my Michelins will literally push away from the rim easily when deflated, and the Chinese tires need a fairly good push in order to break the bead. Time will tell.

    Outside air temperatures have a huge impact on pressure, as does the sun. If you go from the frigid north to the warm south your tire pressures will be higher than they were, and the reverse is also true. The difference I have seen is as much as 7 PSI. It is useless to check tire pressures right after you have been driving, except to measure differences in pressures on the same axle. The values for a hot tire are going to be different by a lot. Similarly, if you check tire pressures after the sun has been shining on them for a while, those pressures are going to read high. So set your alarm and get up before the sun rises to check tire pressures.

    Checking tire pressures is a royal pain in the butt, and nothing makes me madder than having to deal with a leaky valve core that was perfectly fine up until I messed it up by checking pressure. The alternative to checking pressures is poor tire wear (if you are lucky) or worse, a blowout. On our coaches if a tire blows out and starts to disassemble itself there is ahigh probability that besides the cost of the new tire and a service call you will be spending some serious Lewbucks if it tears up things like your airbags, brake lines or all of the other things that can be damaged by a heavy piece of rubber slamming around at 60 miles and hour in your wheel well.

  10. #30
    jelmore Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by mikedee View Post
    I am a big believer in the Michelins, soft ride, great drive, and never had a problem with any tire they ever sold me. I just put 8 on my new bus and $5,000.00 later it drives perfect. XZA2 Energy gets my vote. I put them on my plastic coach and was very happy with the tires.

    Mike
    We're at Prevost in Ft. Worth, and find that our new-to-us 2000 Liberty has original tires. Their tire guy is talking $725 (includes federal tax) plus mount, balance and sales tax for 315/80 22.5 Michelins.

    How did you do 8 for $5000? Or rather where?

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