tires again.

[LaMonte Monnell]

I know the replacement of tires on our coaches get lots of answers. My rear tires are 7 years old now.

The fronts were replaced six months ago when I had new brakes put on.

Question is, are the 7 year old tires aged out now and is it time to replace them?

Toyo M154's

[Chuck Jackson]

This link pertains to passenger car tires but the associations mentioned make several references to 10 years as being the max ‘in service’ life. For me, I’d like to stick to around 8 years.

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=138

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

IMHO after 7 years you are driving on borrowed time. If one of them blows, chances are fairly high that the tread will take out an air bag and possible body panels (if it is an outer tire).
Steve

[Leon Scroggins]

My tire blowout in 2017 was a 6 year old tire with great tread depth and no outward signs of checking or cracking. The tire explosion did over $10,000 in damage to the coach plus the cost of a tire purchased on the side of the freeway in 115 degree heat of the California desert could have almost bought me two tires if I had gone though FMCA Michelin Program.  The amount of heat these tires generate increase the air pressure inside the tire significantly. I believe that was the cause of my tire blow out as the tire was stressed from age being in the sun of Southern Utah most of it's life.

[Bill Lampkin]

Answers to (almost) every RV tire question I can think of:

http://www.rvtiresafety.net/

I too replaced my steer axle tires last summer (2010 date on tire) and plan to do the drive axle this year. Will swap (almost new) steer tires onto tag axle when we replace the tag axle tires this summer or next. Still considering a TPMS for the Beaver.

[Roy Warren Co-Admin]

LaMonte
Is it really worth the cost, should you have a blow-out?  If the answer is no, then you should replace immediately.  If the answer is yes, then you can chance driving with the old tires.  IMHO, there is nothing worth a blow-out knowing how hard it is to control the coach when a front wheel blow-out occurs.  Don't know the control issue on a rear-wheel blow-out, but I would never chance it.  I have my tires inspected by our tire dealer annually and I figure if he gives me an answer that I can wait a year then he has cost himself a set of tires so I am fairly certain that my tires are good enough to last a year.
Roy Warren

[Larry Dedrick]

For those of you that have had a blowout, did you have a tire pressure monitoring system, and if so, was it set for a max temperature that would alert you to possibly avert a blowout situation. I myself would like to know if those of you with a blowout, had this ability. Low air pressure, can certainly cause an overheat condition resulting in a gradual increase of tire pressure possibly resulting in a blowout. I think by passing on this information we all could benefit by the importance of a TPMS. This is not to say that a blowout would never happen with a TPMS, but to at least give us a chance to avert one.
In other words, better our odds on not having a blowout.

       Thanks All        Larry Dedrick

[LaMonte Monnell]

I love all the feedback on my question. Thank you all once again.

I have set up with a tire dealer here in Tampa to replace my four rear tires on Tuesday am. We are leaving that day to start our travel plans in Florida and eventually going to New York in June.

Like everyone else I hate to spend money if its not needed, but the risk to myself, my wife, my coach,  and others on the road make it the proper and cautious thing to do.

Thanks to you all for your help.

[Doug Allman]

There are many commercial safety items that allow some degree of help and control in case of a blowout. There is only one safety item that makes the decision when to change to new tires. That decision maker is the most critical part of the safety aspect of the entire coach. That in itself is a tremendous responsibility not to be taken lightly.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Larry,
I had a steer tire failure (sidewall blowout) and the TPMS showed no problems; PSI or temp. I had checked it less than 3 minutes prior to the event.
Steve

[Keith Cooper]

For what it's worth we just changed the monitor on our TPMS and only  time will tell . But the new monitor defaults high temp to 158 F for each tire and I set the high pressure to  20% over max ratings on the tires. Low pressure is set based on weight on each of the four corners of the coach - 5% (arbitrary). the new monitor includes a rapid pressure loss alarm which was not present in the old monitor. As to alarms I am of the opinion that not replacing batteries as needed  in the sender units and recurring false alarms result in complacency.
Not to hijack this thread, but any comments?