Search the Community

Want to get some idea of 2024 costs to install and balance tires through the FMCA Tire Program. Looking at Michelin. From what I gather, the tire shops listed within the site are part of the program. There is a new Loves really close and thought they should be a good option. Before committing to the program what like an understanding of total cost. The skeptical side of me do not want a tire shop up-charging labor since they are not actually selling the tires retail and would be helpful to know what others have paid.

What is the best portable tire inflAtor for big RV tires

Here is a post from my blog in March 2013 for those that haven't scanned the various topics. "Hopefully all the readers of this blog understand the importance of having the correct inflation pressure in ALL their tires. Be they on a 45' DP or your toad, a tow dolly, regular passenger car or anything in between. The question is how do you get a few more psi of air for your tires when you check in the morning but aren't parked next to a supply of high pressure air? There are a number of different situations and I can't possibly address them all here, but I think you can review these suggestions and find a plan that will work for your situation. I do need to separate out the few folks that discover they have a flat tire or one that has lost more than 20% of the minimum required pressure. NOTE: Tires that have lost 20% of their air are considered "flat" by the tire industry. You have a problem. Maybe a puncture or a failed valve or a tire that has been damaged. You should not drive on your flat tire. You need to change it if you have a spare and the proper tools and experience to do the job safely, or have it changed by a tire service truck and technician. Now the rest of you who just need a few psi to get back to your goal inflation that provides the inflation needed to carry the load plus a few psi "cushion", there is a way to handle your situation. The options depend on how much air pressure you need. If you need 80 psi or less one option is to carry a small "tankless" or "pancake" compressor rated at 100 psi and 1 or 2 Cubic Feet per minute (CFM). These are available for $20 to $60 at discount tool supply companies or auto parts stores. Some are 120V and some are 12v and can run off your battery or on-board generator. Just be sure you have enough extension cord or air host to get to all your tires. NOTE You will have a tough time ever inflating a tire to the pressure the compressor is "rated" for so don't buy a 100 psi compressor is you need 100 psi. If you have a larger rig like a Class-A, you probably need 90 to 120 psi and a compressor rated at 125 to 150 psi and 2 CFM or higher. If you have air brakes you may have enough on-board capacity and just need the appropriate fittings and host. There are small compressors on sale at less than $100 that claim to be capable of 125 psi. One other option for those only a few psi low. Drive to the nearest service station at slightly reduced speed (10 mph under the speed limit would be max) and follow these instructions on how to inflate a hot tire. 1. Record your cold inflation. 2. Calculate how many psi each tire would need to reach your goal cold inflation. 3. Drive at reduced speed, hopefully no more than 10 miles, to the service station with air available. You might want to call ahead to be sure they have enough space or long enough hose to reach your rig. Not all service stations can accommodate a Class-A with a toad. 4. Measure your now warm inflation pressure 5. Add the psi needed from step #2 above plus 3psi to learn your temporary "warm" tire inflation 6. Inflate your warm tires to the temporary goal inflation calculated in step 5. 7. Confirm you have the needed inflation the next morning after the tires are at ambient temperature and adjust accordingly. If you follow these steps I think you will find that your tires have the proper inflation or 1 or 2 psi more so you can set the inflation at your exact goal cold inflation using your digital gauge. If you have any concerns then have a service truck come out to top off your tires. Remember DO NOT DRIVE on any tire that has lost 20% or more of its air"

I am heading to Montana in 2 weeks and will be purchasing 4 tires for my class A. I am interested in recommendations of a good tire store for installation. As we all know, not all service centers are created equal. We will be staying near Livingston so close would be good but not a requirement. Has anyone used Quality Tire Company in Belgrade Montana ? http://qualitytirecompany.com/ Thanks

Over the past few months there have been a couple items in the news and on the Internet about tire failures on RVs and buses. The videos are pretty dramatic. http://tinyurl.com/h4f7ykr http://tinyurl.com/gmvclne Most on this forum are in motorhomes. Many also pull a toad but a few own or have friends with trailers or may even find themselves pulling a trailer ( See our Presidents Message in November FMCA magazine) so I will also include some information for those times. First, for tire failure on toad or trailer or the rear duals or tag of a motorhome it is critical that the driver is notified as soon as possible that there has been a failure or that one is about to occur. The only way I know of gaining this knowledge is with a TPMS that can alert the driver of air loss. Some TPMS can even alert the driver in the first few seconds when the inflation has dropped just a few psi from the hot running pressure. If you do not run a TPMS then you will not learn of the pressure loss before damage has been done, as you will be depending on passing motorists to get the driver's attention. By this time, damage has been done but hopefully the toad or trailer hasn't rolled over or separated from the motorhome which could raise the level of severity of consequences dramatically. For motorhome or bus drivers the failure of a front tire can mean a significantly different outcome, as there is the real potential of a complete loss of control if the wrong response is taken. Here we know that a warning of initial air loss may provide enough time for a thoughtful response from the driver but even having a TPMS is not a 100% guarantee as there are failures that do not involve air loss. So the question then is what actions need to be taken in the first fraction of a second after a front tire comes apart? Thankfully there is a good instructional video of what a driver needs to do. Here is one from Michelin http://tinyurl.com/hjuyu4m and another similar video. Yes, the advice is not intuitive to the average driver but it can work. It has been demonstrated numerous times that there is both proper and improper driver response to a tire failure. Sadly many drivers have ended up turning an inconvenience into a tragedy. A driver needs to stop and think about what to do and to take a moment - frequently - to help implant the correct response so it can become an automatic response. You do have plenty of time to think about this as you drive down the highway. I would suggest that if you spent as little as 10 seconds thinking about the correct response of maintaining control first then slowing down second rather than just stomping on the brakes just once an hour every hour when driving you might find that the action might become automatic. We all know that practice and repetition can make athletes better at their "game" well in this case practice, at least in thought, can make you a safer driver in the "job" of getting yourself and family safely to your destination a reality.

In the May 2016 issue a very good article appeared on the use of Air Pressure Boosters, by Mark Quasius. As a pneumatic specialist in fluid power and having worked with this and other industrial components a couple of clarifications: The statement on a booster functioning as a transformer is slightly off. While it does increase the pressure, it does consume compressed air to do so. Typically at this pressure increase ratio 1/2 of the incoming flow will be used in work and exhausted to atmosphere. A transformer changes the voltage at reduced output amperage but the work to do so (efficiency) is expressed as 97%-99% so only 1%-3% of the energy (heat) is used to transform the voltage. In the air booster it is only 50% efficient hence a big difference in energy consumed. On the size rating, the VBA20A is good for filling large amount of tires, small tanks that start at lower pressures, but is overkill for single tires where you are topping off the pressure to 120psi where you have a supply of 100 psi. Looking at his coach's supply of 18.7 SCFM the larger booster will use that and more if the vessels being pressurized are numerous and nearly empty. The smaller booster VBA10A-N02GN will work just as well in this environment at a typical cost of $278.75 net each, prices may vary. Only the amount of time it takes to get from and to a given pressure changes, the smaller booster will take longer but we are talking a few seconds difference more not minutes. An advantage of the smaller booster is the use of 1/4" NPT pipe fittings instead of 3/8", most hose whips you buy locally are of the 1/4" NPT size for filling tires, then you don't need adapters to hook it up. And the VBA10A is half the length of the VBA20A, easier to find a hole to tuck it into. Word of caution with this smaller booster, it has the capability of a true 2X supply pressure so can produce 240psi from a supply of 120psi and this must be avoided. The VBA20A is maximum of 150psi output. Setting the output pressure to 140psi is within the range of most available hoses, components but don't try filling the tires to this at all! The author's recommended hookup is on the mark, but I would add one statement. When you don't need the booster disconnect it using the quick connect from supply, or install a on/off (ball valve) prior to the booster to shut it off when not needed. The booster will always try to generate pressure to the outlet set point and if even a small leak occurs you could be using a lot of coach or compressor air and not even know it! While you can purchase them from SMCPNEUMATICS.com, they are the California distributor of SMC products. See www.smcusa.com for a complete list of local distributors in the USA and Canada. Here is the NE it is www.airlinehyd.com for this product, see; http://www.airlinehyd.com/Webpages/Orderonline/P21Manufacturersearch.aspx?item_number=VBA10A-N02gn-Z for more info. Good Article...... Dave Smith '09 Monaco Monarch with wife and dog. Still working.

Hi guys. This is my first post. I have a 39ft Winnebago Tour and am due for a tire replacement. I have priced the Michelin and the Goodrich 275/80R22.5 since they are both owned by Michelin. There is a considerable difference in price. Has anyone got any input as to the safety and ride issues between the two. I don't want to pay more money if it's just for the Michelin name. Thanks in advance for your input. Bill

I attended a tire seminar in Redmond. OR this year and I remember it being stressed to get a tire pressure monitor for the coach and toad. I did so before leaving the reunion and was quite disturbed by the operation of them. These have sensors that screws on the end of the valve stems and transmit to a receiver kept in the coach. I didn't have the toad with me at the time so I only installed the sensors on the coach. Tire are Michelin 275/70R22.5 XZA2 Energy with about 7,000 miles on them and less than a year old. The first thing I noticed is that reading from all the senors on the monitor itself is reading 5 lbs too high. I verified it with two known good tire gauges. The second thing I noticed is the temperature started out normal but didn't raise much while driving. When I stopped at a rest stop in Washington then the temperature raised about 10 degrees in about five minutes. I wonder how in the world are these sensors supposed to get internal tire temperature if it is spinning around on the stem on the outside of the rim? Maybe there should be a seminar on tire monitors so it could be explained what a misfit add on are. Nothing like the tire monitors that comes with the vehicles today. Hopefully for me it's not $410.00 wasted. TireMinder monitor, charger, 10 sensors, booster and 10 extra batteries. http://www.minderresearch.com/tireminder/tireminder-tpms-with-6-sensors-and-a-signal-booster-tmg400c-6/

Having just upgraded to a tag-axle rig, I happily ordered a set of extra sensors from Daryl and Cheri at Lawrence Electronics Sales. They sell TireTraker TPMS for RVs. I've had great luck with the product; and, when I called to order a new sensor after a catastrophic dolly tire failure launched one into orbit (it faithfully transmitted the loss back to the receiver as it headed off on its one-way doomed flight), Daryl wouldn't hear of me paying. I protested, saying there was no way he in any way was responsible for an arbitrary tire failure, but he held firm (for the tires' manufacturer, Carlisle, it was a different matter). The icing on the cake: after submitting today's order, I held my breath as shipping and handling was calculated. Such is the fashion nowadays, with vendors gouging the dickens out of customers after they've already committed... Are you ready for this? USPS standard delivery, packed and shipped, for $2.95. Now, some two years after my initial purchase, I like my TireTraker system; but I LOVE Lawrence Electronics Sales. Kudos to Daryl and Cheri! Followup: I got a personal note from Daryl, in addition to my emailed receipt. It is SUNDAY. They have a customer for life.