Time To Replace Tires? And What Is Best?

[GUNTHER4094]

We are the original owners of a 2006 National Tradewinds with less than 20K miles. They have always been covered with tire covers. 

A friend who works on heavy machinery said that there is no need to replace still look great but my husband and I have heard we should replace. 

We need 275/80R22.5 tires and were leaning towards Michelin but have been noticing comments about BF Goodrich. We do not use the coach

much and could be looking to sell. Would appreciate any input.

 

[hermanmullins]

Gunther,

Welcome to the Forum. 

10 years old tires are on borrowed tire.

Check side walls for crazing. Also look closely between the treads. I know you may have deep treads but that is only the tip of tire issues. 

Be careful and safe. 

Herman 

[blakeloke]

Gunther,

Welcome to the forum.  Below is an excellent post from expert TireMan regarding tire age. I personally would not run tires that are 10 years old.

Our coach came with Goodyear tires.  For me, there was a noticeable difference in ride between the Michelins we have now vs the original tires (for the better).

Blake

 

[manholt]

Gunther.  Welcome.

If your going to sell the coach and not drive on any more trips, I'd be upfront with any buyer and tell them it needs new tires!  How old are your batteries?

If you intend to use it for trips, then get new tires before you go!  What brand?  It's your comfort zone.

Carl

[five]

We pulled in to a CG on Sat and our neighbor was in a 1999 Itasca MH.  This was his first ever RV, had it three weeks and was on his first trip, Ft Worth to Wisconsin.  He was anxious to tell me all about it....how great it was and that he had taken it to a tire dealer to check the tires.  The tire dealer said the tires were fine...then the told me they were originals!  I showed him the date code on mine and gave him the normal speech about aging out way before wearing out the tread.  I very strongly encouraged him to go to a different tire dealer and get some new tires before going any farther north.  Hope he did.

[manholt]

FIVE, unfortunately, the odds are he did not! 

[jleamont]

Five, that is a great example of how educational and useful the forum is, if he listened to your advice you might have just saved his or someone else's life.

[tireman9]

Tire life is a topic of interest and I can understand the confusion about the statement that 10 years is the max. But when people hear about others having tires that ar 12 or 15 years old and they haven't failed yet they question why we should listen to the 10 year max suggestion. I suppose the issue is that we are assuming that tire life or lack of having a failure is a simple binary fail or no fail but what is really happening is a projection of the probability where getting the answer wrong has major negative consequences.

For the sake of discussion lets assume the probability of a tire failing is a simple progression. We are going to assume that puncture and failing valve are not part of this equation.

So in year 1 there might be a 0.05% probability of failure and this probability doubles each year. Year 2 => 0.1%   Year 3 => 0.2%  Year 4 => 0.4% etc so by year 10 we might be looking at a 25% probability but don't forget you have more than 4 tires so there is a reasonable expectation that one of your tires might fail with significant consequences.

Now my example is over simplified but I feel that if you think about it you can see why keeping tires longer than the suggested max life is not a good idea.

[manholt]

Especially if you have experienced or seen how much damage there is after a separation or blow out !  Then there is the real possibility of being life threatening, to you or others!

Carl