The tire issue has been beat to death, but I feel the tires on our motor home need to be rotated. Now I have read, somewhere, that motor home tires do not have to be rotated. Having called my heavy duty mechanic on this issue, he stated that the tires should be rotated and balanced every 10,000 miles. He then proceeded to inform me as to how they balance the tires. They dismount the tire and place a bag of powder inside and re-mount the tire. This is where I have a problem. I have spoke to a friend, who is a manager of a Ryder Truck Rental establishment, and he state to me that the powder is not a good way to balance tires. I have also spoke to our local supt of highways, he also did not favor this form of balancing tires. I do not have any vibration, so I was going to have the tires just rotated. Before I do this, I would like to pose the question, "any ideas" from other motor home owners ?? Your thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated. The tire size is: 235/80/22.5 Thank you.
Butch Powered Equal. hub centric, MAGNUM Tire Balancing Compound, EZ Balance, Centramatic dynamic wheel balancers, etc. are all accepted different methods of balancing tires. The Powder that you are probably being told about is "Equal balance powder". I am not a big fan of any of the balance systems that amount to something just being dumped into the tire and then letting gravitational pull move it into points of balance. Now to try an help answer your question; ALL TIRES regardless of what they are on should be CORRECTLY rotated and balanced for best life and wear of the tire. Now the method used is becoming some what controversial with all the new systems that being developed. Use what ever method you are most comfortable with. Below is a couple of links to the Michelin and Good Year tire web sites, they offer there own theories on this. I am old school and still shave balance the tires on our track cars(only thing that I find acceptable at speeds in excess of 150 mhp "I'm trying to teach the grandson how to win races from my years of experience from the school of hard knocks"). http://www.michelinrvtires.com/michelinrvtires/hom_us.jsp http://www.goodyear.com/rv/
Butch, Do you have a problem with the tires? We also run the 22.5" truck tires. At eight years of service we replaced all six with new ones that looked like the old ones. Before end of the day some truck had my old tires on and gone. Two front tires were run on spin balancer and weights were around 1 oz. on each tire. On rear tires no balancer was used. I use truck tires due to heavy build and two steel plys in sidewalls over one ply in RV tires. Tires will run around 100,000 to 250,000 miles on a truck. Do you think a motorhome will damage tires in the time we use them? We could drive around the earth 24/7 for years and if do not pick up any nails and tires will stay in good shape. My view is change them around eight years of age and keep the correct air pressure (a tire killer). We can run at any speed and think we are in the tow car, less noise in motorhome. Save your money to by diesel fuel over messed around the balancer iss. Tires on a large motorhome are not a problem.
Given that the average motorhome is driven 7,500 miles per year and that most Goodyear and Michelin tires will easily go 80,000 miles before the tread becomes unsafe, theoretically you could drive over ten years before changing tires. The problem is ultraviolet damage to the tires from the sun. This causes tire failure far, far more often than does wear, and the damage usually occurs in the sidewalls. If you maintain your tire pressure properly, and cover your tires when not in use to protect them from the sunlight, you should be able to get years and years of service. Rotation and balancing? Not unless you have a problem. Otherwise, you are probably wasting your money.
Thank you for your experiences, opinions, and information. Was interesting to see what ours are doing when this subject is raised to them. Thanks again, may you and yours have a great summer.
