How old are your RV tires — those inflatable round rubber cushions that fit around your wheels as you roll down the highway? Are they brand new? Or have they been rolling beneath or behind you for years?
Time flies and some of us, when we stop and think about it, realize that our tires are older than we remembered. “We’ve had ’em a few years,” you say, and then your significant other reminds you that you bought them back in 2015, the same time your youngest child graduated from college.
Do you know the age of the tires on your RV? If you can’t remember exactly, take your best guess.
We track mileage and years on our tires. Our previous tires were 3 1/2 years and 12,700 miles. Just put on new tires for a 5,000 mile trip and felt it wasn’t worth the risk with existing tires even though they looked fine.
8 Brand new tires put on! We did cross country trip to California over July 4 for our 35th Anniversary
I replaced the original China tires last year. They looked good, but after two years with the high temperatures lately I did not want to take a chance. I put on Goodyear Endurance. The tech even commented on how much stiffer the sidewalls were. Both were load range E, but the Goodyears are much higher quality, Plus, they are made in the US.
Four new tires 4 weeks ago. I check tires, pressure, and lug nuts before every trip. That said, we left home on 16 July 21 going from Belen, NM to Pagosa Springs, CO. We had gone maybe 35 miles when the right-front trailer tire decided to puke out all of its air. After getting the spare tire in place, I saw a bent nail in the right-rear. We made it another 10 miles to a tire shop where we had all four tires on the ground replaced.
We have a 2018 Class C. Had a blowout on an inside rear tire in January on a short 4 day getaway. Following that, we bought 7 new tires before heading out on an 8000 cross country mile trip. Expensive but so glad we did it.
Dealer put 6 new tires on our RV when we bought it. Imagine my surprise when looking at the date in the spare. It was OEM from 2011. Needless to say, it no longer is there.
I have a 2017 Redwood, only got 4-7k miles out of a set of 16 ply tires. Had Independent suspension put on….now going on 13k miles with little to no wear….what a difference! I’ll have to change tires at 4 years at this rate.
I kept reading, in this newsletter and on-line, about the importance of keeping tires in good shape. So, this past week I looked at our trailer tires. One seemed a bit low. We asked our storage place to check all four. There were cracks in two tires (trailer is a 2020 bought in August 2019.) Our trailer has vey little mileage on it as it is towed only 10 miles from storage to a resort and then back again. The tires should have lasted longer but to be safe we are having four new tires installed.
Possibly sun damage.
Changed in April of 18. Good to go for another 3 years. Change whether we have to or not. Have done tires every 6 years.
I have a MH and change 2 of the 6 tires every two years.
I never have a tire more than 6 years old
My Michelin’s are 4 1/2 years old. I check then religiously. Have a TPMS. Motorhome stored inside when not in use. No cracks at all. And no plans in replacing them anytime soon. Roger Marble is my bible.
Just replaced a set on my fiver two years back. It is too bad that today’s tires only last a few seasons. My previous fiver the tires lasted the life of the trailer I put on new ones when I sold it 35 years later. Those tires were Bridgestone and were made in Tiwan.
Replaced Toyo’s at 11 years on my 2003 Fleetwood 39L… never a problem or a blemish…💀
We just bought our 4th set of six tires for our motor home less than month ago. 129,000 miles on our 2004 Itasca. The date stamp on all 6 was the 26th week of 2021. So, they are less than 8 weeks old. I think / know I was kind of a pest at the dealership insisting on recent manufacturing dates. Our Schwab dealer outdid himself.
OUTSTANDNG
I recently bought a set of 4 Goodyear Endurance tires through Walmart.com.The price was fair and I also installed metal valve stems. My only complaint was that they wouldn’t let me deliver to the store, they had to be shipped to my home, so they missed out on the mounting, which I did myself. I must say that at 69, I am getting a bit too old to be wrestling tires off and on the rims manually, but I “Got ‘er Done!”. My 28ft TT does seem to pull better now …not as much tendancy to sway.
The tires on our 2016 Class C are the original equipment so roughly 5 years old. They also have 54,000 miles on them as it is an ex-rental vehicle. Thus they are nearing the end of their useful life both time & mileage-wise. I’ll monitor them closely for the rest of this year and probably get new ones next spring. That reminds me to get out my tread depth gauge and check them again now.
Mine are 1999 only because I have been parked for 8 years. Will be getting new tires in the next month so I can start traveling. Unbelievably the tires are not cracked but would not trust driving on them even further than to the tire store.
My tires are 7 years old but in great shape. I am not overly worried about them since I went from a load range E that came on the 5th wheel to a G. Why? Because the LR-E were barely rated to carry the GVWR of the trailer and I could not find an LR-F in an LT tire so went to a G rated tire. I tried ST tires but too many blowouts and the trailer data plate called for LT tires anyway. I plan to run the tires for another 2 or 3 years.
RON V.
THERE ARE NO 7 YEAR OLD TIRES ON A MOTORHOME THAT ARE IN “GREAT SHAPE”, MAY LOOK GOOD BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT, OVER 30 YEARS IN THE INDUSTRY AS A MASTER CERTIFIED RV SERVICE TECH, CHANGE THEM NOW, I HAVE SEEN TO MANY BLOWOUTS WITH “GOOD LOOKING TIRES” THAT HAVE CAUSED DAMAGE AND INJURIES, DON’T PLAY GAMES, CHANGE THEM…..MOTORHOME FRONT AXLES ARE RECOMMENDED AT 5 YEARS, REAR AXLES AT 7 YEARS.
Current set of tires are 3 years old, on our class-a. The previous set was 22 years old, when we got the coach. They still looked good, had minor small sidewall cracks, but the rubber was hard and they rode rough.
All are younger than five years, with two at five, two at four, and two more at two years old.
We got new tires last June (i.e., 2020) and all the date codes were late 2019 or 2020.
Our current tires are less than 3 months old.
Found out the hard way that our tires, that we bought new, were several years older than we thought they were.
We are stationary seasonal campers and the tires that came with the trailer are still on there!
The Front Tires are 2 years and the rear 4 are 2 months old. The original tires were on our MH when we bought it 8 years ago so did not know the age when changed.
Had a blow out on an outside rear on our Class B+ going into Phoenix in late June. Replaced 5 of the 6 tires. They were 4.5 ye old with 50k on them. Big O Tires had them in their warehouse and got us back the road in 5 hours.
I’m not on the coach right now so I had to look it up. I knew it was recent. Put 6 new tires on in May 2021. Old tires were just 5 years old. We were beginning a cross country round trip and figuring that one new set of tires might be our last. Have a friend who chose to delay new tires for a couple of months until she got to Florida. Less than 80 miles out an inner dual blew out. Short story it wrapped around the axle so the rig could not be towed, had to be flat bedded. Broke through the bedroom floor and among other damage ripped out wiring harness and wrapped it around the axle too. By some miracle it only took a couple of weeks to put it right so she could resume her drive minus the deductible and the cost of 6 new tires.