Tire wear on TOAD

[Steve Adams]

We pull a 2008 Honda Element behind our rig. At the last service (23k miles), the guy behind the desk pointed out that my tires were getting close, and may need replacement the next time I came in. I was a little shocked due to the low mileage on the car, and the fact we rotate them faithfully, and keep the pressure where it belongs. When I added in the miles towed (they don't register when towing), the tires have about 28k on them. They look OK to me, with what I would consider normal wear on the outside shoulders. I honestly expected to get 55-65k out of them before they needed to be replaced.

This is the first time we've owned a MH and TOAD. I never considered this would be an issue. Is this normal?

Thanks, Steve

[Ken Buck]

Opinions vary, and sometimes there are incentives to salespeople to sell more tires. If you have questions about one opinion, go to a couple other tire stores, and have their people look at the tires and get their opinions. If it were me, I wouldn't tell them someone told me I need tires, I'd ask if they thought my pressure was right for the kind of driving I'd been doing. During the conversation, you'll get a good idea if they would recommend replacement or not.

[Edward Buker]

Steve,

I have towed a Honda Accord for a number of years. There is some increased wear rate while towing the car for the car steer tires. As the coach turns, the car wheels are forced to respond and eventually align themselves with the coach direction, but it is a forced response that takes some time. During that transition you are dragging the front tires against the traveled pavement direction to a certain extent. The other issue working against you is that the new energy version of tires tend not to have high wear ratings. I would be wary of running tires on the front of the toad near the mimimum allowed tread given the extra tire stress while being towed. I have replaced my car tires with higher treadwear rated versions of Michelin tires to compensate for this issue to some extent.

Later Ed

[Gerald Farris]

Steve,
Over the last ten years I have towed a car in excess of 120,000 miles. Most of the time I have been towing a Jeep Grand Cherokee. The first Jeep was a 2000 model that I averaged about 60,000 combined miles on a set of tires. The current Jeep is a 2005 and I got 65,000 combined miles from the first set of tires and I have about 30,000 combined miles on the current set that looks less than 1/2 worn, so I expect to get at least the same mileage.

The comment that Ed made about the tires scuffing a little on turns is correct. However since the vast majority of the miles that I tow are spent traveling straight down an Interstate Freeway, I do not feel that it makes a significant difference in my thread life.

I do not know what air pressure you are running in your tires, but if you are using the recommended pressure off of the sticker on your door jam, your tire thread life will increase if you increase the tire pressure to the maximum inflation that is on the sidewall of the tire. The ride will be a little rougher, but the tire mileage will increase significantly.

Gerald

[Joel Ashley]

Steve-

I noticed wear on the inside of my Explorer's front tires, and it turned out the front end simply needed alignment.

However, I was suspicious how it may have gotten that way in the first place, aside from normal road hazard effects, and further research led me to a couple of things.  

One is that if there is any height difference in hitch hookup points between toad and coach, that can cause unusual toad tire wear;  if the toad is low the coach tends to unweight the toad's front end by pulling ever so slightly upward, effectively changing its wheel alignment parameters.  If the toad is high (like ours was), the coach tends to pull down and load the toad's front end more than designed, undetectably splaying its tires, and making the toad's set alignment ineffective.  Actually, our hitch didn't appear radically off level, so it doesn't take much - a couple inches can make a difference.  Roadmaster in Vancouver graciously helped us move the hitch to a more horizontal configuration.  

Secondly, as Ed alluded to, when you turn the coach the toad is forced to follow, and especially during turn initiation, the tires scrub a mite.  This is eminently true when you make a turn from a dead stop.  Picture in your mind a hard right turn onto a cross street after stopping at an intersection.  The coach rolls forward, but not straight forward, as you turn the steering wheel right;  the toad isn't rolling much at all yet.  The coach tailswing actually is forcing the toad hard to its left even though the toad's wheels point straight ahead.  You can now imagine a good deal of toad tire scrubbing going on before the coach is rolling straight again with the toad dutifully behind.  As Gerald points out, his high mileage comes from the straight freeway driving predominant in his travels - relatively few scrubbing opportunities compared to some of us.  

If you make a conscious effort to not make sharp turns from dead stops, that will help a lot;  just make sure coach and toad are both rolling forward before initiating a turn, so the hitch is pulling, rather than prying sideways so much with tailswing.  And have your toad's alignment checked more often when it's towed a lot;  that same tailswing effect can obviously strain a front end and throw things off quicker than normal.

-Joel

[Dave Blystone]

i tow a 2005 scion xb,  i put new tires on it at sams club before going to alaska  after i got back the tires were badly worn   sams club replaced them with higher mileage tires  good luck    dave  b