tireman9

I have seen controlled tests with a dozen professional truck drivers presented with a few tires at different inflations. While they can reliably identify a tire that has lost 50% or more pressure. the best any could do is be within 20 psi of the actual pressure. If you have a TPMS I don't know why you check pressure with hand gauge. This increases the potential for having a valve core leak. It also gets your knees dirty. 😎 Here is an older blog post where I advise to not check the air in your tire and show what can happen.

Sorry but IR guns simply do not provide sufficiently focused temperature readings to be of much value. Here is a link to my articles on IR guns and measurement of tire temperature. IR guns are OK for measuring the temperature of materials that conduct heat i.e. metals but do not work well on insulating material such as rubber or plastic A quick look at the thermal images collected with a good ($15,000) imager as seen in my last post will show you how critical it is to get the exact location at the bottom of a groove. TPMS temperature reading is, in reality, the temperature of the metal wheel and if your TPMS sensor is external it is low by 20F to 30F because the metal valve stem and TPM sensor is cooled by external air.

I strongly suggest you check your important information paperwork and check the DOT date code for all your Cooper tires against this recall information. NHTSA Recall ID Number : 19T006 Synopsis : Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. (Cooper Tire) is recalling certain Roadmaster RM852 EM tires, size 295/75R22.5, with DOT date codes 4618 through 4818. The innerliner gauge may be too thin, allowing the tire sidewall to fail. A sidewall failure may cause the tire to rapidly deflate, increasing the risk of a crash. Cooper Tire has notified owners, and dealers will inspect and, if necessary, replace the tires, free of charge. The recall began August 30, 2019. Owners may contact Cooper Tire customer service at 1-800-854-6288. Cooper Tire's number for this recall is 173. Don't forget a NHTSA recall means you probably get NEW replacement tires with mounting and balancing included.

Good, I got your attention. Recently there was a thread on an RV forum with a person complaining that the sensors on the toad didn't provide a warning when the brakes all locked up and all four tires quickly wore through the tire tread and all four tires suffered "Blowouts". From the numerous comments on that forum, it appears that a good number of RV owners do not have a good understanding of what TPMS can and can not do. Here is what I wrote.: Tire Pressure Monitor Systems do not and never were intended or designed to monitor belt separations or improper mounting or sidewall blisters or tread wear etc. People need to stop thinking they are a cure-all to warn of every possible tire condition. I have written on the inability of TPMS to provide advance warning of "separations". MONITORING air pressure is their primary job and from my testing and experience working with them since 2002, they do that job quite well. The temperature sensing an "add-on" and I have written that I wish this "feature" was not part of the package, as very few users understand the difficulties of obtaining the temperature of the critical location for high temp and IMO TPMS are of little value for monitoring tire temperature especially given they are really monitoring the temperature of the metal wheel and not of the tire radial belts. I did a direct comparison of two TPM systems (internal vs external) and to my knowledge, this is the only such comparison I have heard about. both systems reported pressures reasonably accurately but the temperature readings were different by 20 to 30F. Not wrong, just different as the systems are measuring different areas of the tire/wheel system. Do you understand this difference? Do you know how to decide which is more important? Bottom line. Set your TPMS for your tire pressure needs. Do not expect the TPMS to do "magic" Understand the benefits and limitations to the technology. Go out and enjoy your RV. IMO you are misleading yourself if you think TPMS are a substitute for competent, detailed tire inspections on an annual or more often basis.

I prefer to say 10% as people who read my posts may have 65 psi LR-D ST type tires or may have 22.5 tires rated for 120psi. Don't exceed the max inflation rating of the wheel or tire with the cold pressure. Since tire pressure changes about 2% for each 10F change in ambient a 10% tolerance covers 50F ambient change which should get you through a few weeks travel without having to fiddle with air pressure. You don't need the 10% every travel day. I just want you to have to spend less time messing with tire pressure than necessary. It may help if you read THIS blog post on how I set my TPMS to ensure adequate inflation pressure but also minimize the times I need to add air. If you start with +10% you really don't need to add air till you get down to only a couple psi above your minimum needed inflation.

Had a question from "Fred" on "Truing Tires" On a different subject, on the Escapee's forum, there was a conversation about tires, and someone mentioned truing new tires. IMO, truing of new tires today only covers up poor mounting procedure, vs 40-60 years ago when tire construction was not as advanced. What are your thoughts on this? First, let's be sure everyone knows what we are talking about. The process of "Truing " a tire involves shaving part of the tread rubber off to make the mounted tire more round. HERE is a YouTube video showing the process. I tend to agree with "Fred" that most out-of-round problems can be traced to a tire not being properly mounted and seated on the rim. It is also possible that the wheel itself may not have been properly mounted on the hub or it is even possible for the wheel itself to not be round. If you have a vibration problem you first need to ask "What has changed?" Did you just get new tires? Are the tires the same but the wheels were off the vehicle for something like a brake job? Have you been driving on especially rough roads with many large potholes? This is a "new to you" vehicle and you have no history with the tires and wheels on this vehicle. On some vehicles "Heat Set Flat-Spot" may be the cause. This happens when tires have been run, getting hot and you just stop and park the vehicle. Sometimes leaving the vehicle parked for weeks or months can also allow the tire to get a flat spot which could take a couple of hours running to work the flat spot out. High-Performance Passenger tires are more susceptible to this problem than large 22.5" size radials but even 22.5 tires can develop a flat spot. The problem of vibration can usually be traced to either out of balance or the tire/wheel assembly being "Out-Of-round". If you have vibration on a new tire, I would first confirm it was balanced. Next, I would measure the assembly on the vehicle and confirm it is in-tolerance. This usually means less than 0.030" radial runout goal with 0.125" the upper limit. If you are exceeding the above, the next step would be to try and confirm which component is not "round". Ideally, you would confirm the wheel, with no tire mounted, was below the limit. If the wheel is "round" when measured on a mounting machine then we would need to confirm it is round when bolted to the hub. Some wheels are "Hub-Centric" and others are "Lug-Centric". Hub centric means the wheel centers on the ledge of the hub on the brake drum. Lug centric means it centers on the bolts holding the wheel to the hub. A lug-centric wheel can easily get "off-center" if one lug nut is fully tightened before the other lug nuts are snugged up. There are patterns for the sequence and steps of tightening lug nuts depending on the number of lug nuts. Here is the sequence as published by Chilton, a publisher of numerous automotive repair manuals. In addition to the above sequence, it is advisable to tighten the nuts in three steps of 1/3rd of the torque level. Example: if your torque spec was 90 Ft-Lbs you would first do all the nuts to 30 ft-lbs then again following the sequence tighten to 60 Ft-Lbs. The finally to the 90 Ft lb spec, again following the pattern If the pattern and amount of torque are not followed it is easy to end up with a round tire & wheel assembly to be mounted off-center to the hub which results in an out of the round situation and unacceptable vibration. Before I resorted to shaving a new tire I would measure the out of round. If you have confirmed all the above yet still have vibration on new tires, I would work with the tire dealer to confirm there is nothing in the individual tire that might contribute to some vibration by simply switching tires around or trying a different set of tires. In all probability, by now you would have found and fixed the cause of the vibration.

Gas or DP or even electric large Motorhome or Class-C or even Class-B. All could benefit from doing the close, detailed "free-spin" inspection as seen in the video. The video was done on a trailer RV so is relatively easy for an owner to do themselves. As you go up in tire size and RV weight the owner will probably need the assistance of a large floor jack only available at truck service locations. BUT the concept is the same. When radial tires start to develop belt separations there are many times external visual clues. These can be spot or localized wear or out-of-round or lateral runout movement. This movement is almost undetectable if the tire is static. But as you can see in the video are very obvious if the tire is rotating even slowly.

Curious. When were your tires last inspected by a tire tech? I don't mean simple visual or tread depth measure. I mean close-up with work light. Feeling with a hand around 360° of both sidewall and around 360° of the tread. While it is a bit harder to do with a Class-A than on a trailer but IMO the front tires are more critical on Class-A and a "Free Spin" as the link in THIS post shows, should be performed each year and each 3 to 5,000 miles starting at year 5 of tire age. The manager or senior tech at a dealer/store that sells your brand tire is the one best trained to do an inspection. I would not expect this to be free as it should take at least 5 min and maybe 10 for each front since it would require each front tire to be lifted off the ground.

While I can't address negative reports on some applications for some brands, I do know that I can find negative posts on just about every brand tire I ever heard of. A couple of points: No company that makes Passenger, Light Truck and Heavy truck (RV) tires make them with the same materials or on the same building machines. I doubt that you think that winning the Indy 500 means you can expect the same materials or process to be used in your 365/70R22.5 LR-J tire. I have a couple of posts on my blog with links to videos of tire manufacturing process new and old, showing just how different the manufacturing process can be. The raw materials are different and the internal QA testing is different, so I don't feel it is reasonable to use a broad brush of "negative reviews" from some individuals to consider all the tires a company makes must also be bad especially given the well-documented cases of poor or non-existant tire maintenance for so many vehicle owners. When people ask me for recommendations for tires I offer a couple of suggestions. 1. You can check with NHTSA and check for current recalls for the brand and type tire you are considering. 2. Visit the company web site and see if you can locate dealers or stores in the states you travel to. If there are hundreds of stores then it would follow that it should be easier to get service and that millions of consumers must be happy with the products that the company makes. When doing this check confirm that you have visited the appropriate company web site. Some companies separate passenger and Heavy Truck dealers and you should not expect to be able to get service for your 22.5" tires at a passenger tire dealer 3. Don't use purchase price as your primary yardstick Things to think about: What was the complaint in the negative review? price? Service at a particular store? The tire didn't deliver 70,000 miles wear? The fact that the tire suffered a puncture? Maybe even a complaint about a tire failure but the failure was traced to a valve core leak. I have even heard some complaints about the style of lettering on a tire sidewall. Bottom line I know of no reason to not include Hankook brand on your shortlist.

For those who missed the Seminars (Basic, Advanced & Trailer) at Minot, I have been asked by FMCA to give similar presentations at both Tuscon and Syracuse Conventions in 2020. Hope to see you there

Just a reminder to stop in at my RV tire Seminars at FMCA Int'l Conventions. Current plans include Minot, ND and in 2020 Tuscon and Syracuse. I have a "Basic Knowledge" seminar aimed at everyone. Plus one especially for those that tow any kind of trailer. For those really interested in learning the nuts and bolts on tire failure. -- Think CSI for tire failures -- I offer an "Advanced Tire Seminar. All are free and I am more than happy to answer any tire, valve or TPMS related questions.

NHTSA does have a list of tire "complaints" Remember that some/many complaints may have nothing to do with the actual quality of the subject tire but may be a complaint based on a tire not being able to function because of external damage such as puncture or overload or under-inflation.

I have a post on how to soften the blow to your wallet when confronted with changing tires that focuses on keeping the best tires on the front when all tires are the same size. I do agree that if there is a significant difference in the fronts I would consider changing the pair. If one tire still looks OK you can always sell it locally

To clarify my findings. For covers that fit right over a tire that are a solid material like vinyl; White would be preferred as we are primarily concerned with keeping the heat down as increased temperature can "bake" the life out of a tire structure. I understand that people have been talking about UV protection for years but other than ugly surface cracking, I don't recall seeing an actual tire disablement (coming apart) because of UV but have seen numerous tire belt separations and failures due to excess heat. However, if you are hanging a shield off the side of the RV as seen in the pictures above then even a black mesh is OK as this type of shield allows good air circulation between the mesh shade and the tire. I base my recommendations on Science and data. I measured temperature and posted the numbers on my blog. For the flat "shields" I collected data while at REDMOND, OR from a number of Class-A RV with that type of shield. Not sure if I would claim black is "better" than white as we are talking about two different types of shields. At Indianapolis, IN I did a test on "Shade-Pro" brand mesh shields and found they delivered equivalent heat protection.

Not sure how to answer the OP question. I spent a good portion of my career trying to develop tires to meet the various targets from different car companies. One challenge was to get a list that prioritized the different goals when many times the customer considered all targets to be equally important. One problem is that without doing a direct comparison of two different tires on the same vehicle, it is almost impossible to do a "clean" comparison. You might read http://www.rvtiresafety.net/2019/05/why-no-tire-reviews.html to get a better appreciation of the problem.

I am not aware of any technical reason to have valves at 180 degrees as long as the hand hole is large enough to allow easy access and to allow grasping the valve or valve extension so as to not overload the valve mount in the wheel. I would be surprised if the balance was compromised out of spec. jlemont's list is good one but be careful with the oil near the lug nut as lubricating the threads could cause over-torquing the lugnut as I covered in my blog post.

While I don't have a Class-A, other than the length, I'm not sure if any one system is significantly better than another. As long as the system you buy can handle the total number of tires on your coach + toad AND is rated for your tire pressure. Warranty length and service may be the only meaningful difference between some units. I have done what I think is the only direct real-life comparison of internal vs external system back in 2018 and published the results on my blog. But some general observations and comments. IMO User-replaceable batteries are a plus. You can confirm the battery P/N before purchase and check at a grocery store or at Home Depot or Lowes for both price & availability but most are under $2 each and last 1 to 2 years depending on use. I have found that after 8 to 18 months use, low battery power may contribute to a dropped signal. My solution is to mark the install month year date with Sharpie. I do like a system with long (Lifetime?) warranty and one that actually has the dealer/distributor attend RV conventions as that means they have people that are not just selling "widgets" on Amazon and probably have a telephone, email, and website. RE: Repeater. I have listened to the "sales-pitch" from a number of different vendors at FMCA Convention and most will ask about the type & length of coach and offer suggestion to get a repeater or not but I also note that some will offer to send a repeater for just the cost of the repeater if you discover you need one later. Others just include a repeater with all sales just ask and see what they say or offer. Alarms going off. I have a blog post on how I set my TPMS and haven't had any false alarms with the TireTraker system I purchased in 2009 (I did upgrade to the TT500 in 2018 after I killed the original TT400 monitor by connecting the wrong charger to it. My error not TT) I have found I do not need a power cord to the monitor on the dash as a single overnight charge is good for weeks of daytime use. I do shut off the monitor each evening. In the morning I turn it on again and by the time I am done with my coffee all 6 sensors have sent in the baseline pressure so I get a fresh "cold" pressure reading just to keep an eye on things. Do not be confused with the time to establish a signal. As far as I know, sensors only send a signal once every 8 to 15 minutes to conserve battery life. They also will send a Low-Pressure warning within 2 to 4 seconds. Read the literature or ask the dealer to learn what your system timing is. Maintenance: I do run a "test" every year to confirm the sensors are still reporting air loss in the first few seconds. The post also covers spare parts I keep on hand.

If changing the tire size on any RV where you have "Dual" tires on an axle (two tires next to each other on the end of one axle) Be sure to check the specification for "Minimum Dual Spacing". If you go with tires that are wider there is a possibility they might touch which in extreme cases can lead to tire failure. Here is a post from my RV Tire blog specifically on this safety concern. There are some other posts on "Dual" tires and proper matching you might want to at least review so you have a little better understanding.

I agree with Brett. 1. be sure your runout is good. Remember it is possible to balance a cinder block but it would not give a good ride 2. It is possible to have a wheel & tire in good balance but the hub & brake drum could be out so you could spend lots of time and $ re-balancing the tire off the RV and never solve the problem. 3. "Beads" Some tire companies say their warranty is void if you put anything inside the tire 4. The possible downside to variable balance systems such as beads and other bolt-on balancers. Assume for a moment you have a tire that starts to develop a belt separation. You hopefully would get an early warning of vibration feel in the steering wheel. With internal balancing or bolt-on balancer the tire is "re-balanced" every time you startup. This could possibly mask the vibration from the belt separation.

Brett is correct. Guess he has been paying attention and reading my posts and RVTireSafety blog. 😎 Trailer application definitely places different and higher belt shear forces than when placed on a motorhome or tow vehicle. Probably would have been better for this post to be in the Trailer thread. I could not quickly find info on the actual construction of the HS3 but would assume it is "all steel" as are most other "Commercial" tires. This construction and other features seem to result in longer durability than the standard Polyester/steel seen on LT and St type tires. Continental is a German company. You can learn more HERE.

With deep tread you should be able to get a good trade in price on those tires. There are many local applications that chew up tires in local driving that could use these tires. But the bottom line for over the highway use puts a 10 year max life for RV use.

I understand the concept of the systems that "balance" the inflation on a set of duals. As a tire design engineer, I also know that proper inflation is important however I am not aware of any controlled testing that shows any advantage for better durability if the tires are linked so that the air pressure is constantly matched. I note that some have posted that they use TPMS which is a very good thing to do. If you are attaching a TPM sensor to one of these systems you do need to pay attention to the low-pressure warning as the "sharing" of air might delay the warning of air loss being made to the driver.

Got a question on China-made tires on an RV forum. Tireman, In a Post, you commented on not expecting long life performance out of the lowest priced tires. There seems to be something in all of the reports for "China Bombs" in that there are a lot of reported failures. Is the hype bigger than the problem? Should well maintained OEM tires last better than what is being reported? Is it your assessment that the seemingly high percentage of failures is due to the OEM tires being cheap, low-cost tires? Sailun tires seem to have a good reputation, even though they are China tires. So it would seem that it's really just an issue of quality of the build. A good tire is a good tire, regardless of where it's made? In general, I would consider steel body tires, like many Sailun items, "Commercial" grade, be they LT or ST type and as such I would expect them to perform better than lighter duty tires (both ST & LT type). A problem with "reports" of failures is that almost no owners have the knowledge or training necessary to properly identify the real cause for failure. So while there may be a dozen reports of "Blowouts", there could be a dozen different root cause reasons. Some might even not be tire related cause but valve or wheel failure or pothole or 10d nail through the sidewall. RE quality. All tires sold in the US are required to be certified by the manufacturer to be capable of passing Federal Regulations. If tires do not pass a test (random selection by DOT) or if there are sufficient complaints to get the attention of NHTSA they might initiate an investigation. If it is found that tires do not pass the required testing then a recall might be ordered and recalls would include all tires made since the last tire that passed the test was made. This could be many thousand tires. There are also fines. So this is something tire companies really do not want to have happened. I have written a number of times on my blog about "China" tires and how I disagree with the concept which I liken to claiming that RVs made in Indiana are bad because most of the complaints or problem reports are about RVs built in Indiana. __________________ Retired Tire Design Engineer

Is there anyone else having this problem of being asked to pay to view my RV Tire Blog? I can't fix the problem if I can't identify it.

Could you explain the "Batteries are over 50% of a new sensor" comment? The batteries on my TireTraker TPMS run less than $2 for the name brand CR1632 Lithium. Amazon has some less than $1 each New sensors run $35 TST sensors are listed for $47.50 and they use the same CR1632 batteries.