Coach Weight

[Phil N Barb Rodriguez]

I'm with you guys on the safety margin although I am very concious of how I load the coach for a trip.

Thought I would post my coach weighing experience so you could see, from my perspective, how well the coach is balanced side to side.

Joel, you mentioned your tire guy didn't like the tire pressure you were running. Could you talk about his comments?

I had new G169's installed last summer at Wingfoot in Spokane. I didn't know at the time that they inflated the tires to max cold pressure, (as seen on the sidewalls). Not until they had to give me a road service trip to our house to fix a valve stem problem did the service guy talk about the pressure. He was puzzeled as to why the tires were at max pressure. We adusted down to 110psi. I'll probably go to 105psi next trip. I told them when they wrote the service ticket that I wanted 105 in the tires.

[Joel Weiss]

Joel, you mentioned your tire guy didn't like the tire pressure you were running. Could you talk about his comments?

 

Phil--

The tire guy was annoyed that I had inflated the tires to maximum because I didn't have an accurate weight and figured that having them at cold max would at least be safe.   He said that the extra pressure ruined the ride and wasn't good for the tires.  With Michelin Load Range J tires I am now running ~100 in the rear and 110 in the front.  The XZE2+ tires ride really nicely at these pressures.

As for the side to side balance, we had a 4-wheel weighing done last summer at the Escapees Escapade and the people who did it were amazed that we were no more than ~50 pounds difference on the two sides of either axle.  They said that was rather uncommon, particularly with coaches that have slides on only one side.

Joel

[LarryNCarolynShirk]

Somewhere in my memory bank, I seem to recall the manufacturer's tire pressure charts are designed for 70 degrees F ambient temperature.  I once saw a chart showing the variations from that temperature for each pressure.  Someone may want to explore the possibility of that chart with a tire manufacturer at the next opportunity.

Larry

[Joel Weiss]

Somewhere in my memory bank, I seem to recall the manufacturer's tire pressure charts are designed for 70 degrees F ambient temperature.  I once saw a chart showing the variations from that temperature for each pressure.  Someone may want to explore the possibility of that chart with a tire manufacturer at the next opportunity.

Larry

With my TST TPMS I can see the pressure change with temperature in the morning before we leave.  I believe Michelin says it is on the order of 1 psi per 10 degree change and that is pretty consistent with what I am seeing.  If anyone would like to work it out in detail, the equation is P(1)T(2) = P(2)T(1) where the T's are measured in degrees Kelvin.  Because the T's are in Kelvin, a change of 10 degree F is only a ~1.5% change in Kelvin temperature (300K = 80.6F and a change of 1 degree F is a change of ~ 0.5 degree K) so the morning temperature usually only a couple of psi different from the evening one.