By Russ and Tiña De Maris
RVers depend on their RV tires — and they’re an expensive thing to replace. We’ve often talked about the matter of safety and RV tires, but this time will highlight finances and what you can do to cut costs.
Industry experts, including tire-consuming fleet folks — all agree: “The largest contributing factor [to a tire’s life span],” says Pat Martindale, “is air pressure. It was years ago, and it still is today.” Martindale is a maintenance guru for Penske Truck Leasing, and gave this maxim to Light & Medium Duty Truck magazine.
Similar views are echoed by Michelin North America through their customer engineering support manager, Doug Jones. Jones says that under-inflated or over-inflated tires simply wear unevenly and prematurely wear out. Under-inflation can lead to zipper ruptures along the sidewall that lead to rapid deflation. As little as 10 pounds “under recommended pressure” can cause an increase in tire wear of seven to 15 percent. Over-inflate that big rubber roundie and you can look to see increased wear and tear on the center of the tire tread, a stiffer ride, and a lot less forgiveness when hitting ‘road hazards.’
You dually runners, listen up: Pressure between two tires in a dual set should not differ by more than five pounds. If the difference is bigger than that, one tire will be larger than the other, and the smaller one won’t roll nor deflect as it should.
Photo: kearnj on flickr.com
