Rotating Tires

[Steven Harper]

How often should we rotate our tires or should we??  We have a 2008 Beaver Contessa with 30,000 miles on it.  We just noticed one of our front tires is cupping.  We are going to have it re-aligned but someone told us to rotate our tag axle tires to the front and move the front back to the tag axle. Is this the right thing to do?  I'm just concerned when they have to take the tires off the rims and getting them sealed again.   Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks,
Karen
712555

[Gerald Farris]

Karen,
It would probably be a good idea to swap the tag axle and front tires. You will not have to remount the tires since the tag and front axles both have aluminum wheels.

The reason that you will benefit from swapping the tires is that after a tire starts wearing uneven, it will not correct itself and wear to an even thread wear pattern. So having the uneven tires on the tag axle will reduce tire noise and vibration.

You may find that the uneven tire wear is not as much of an alignment problem as it is a characteristic of the Goodyear tires that you are running on your coach.

Gerald  

[Gil_Johnson]

Ditto on the Goodyear comment.  I was going to have my front end aligned and the tech said he'd gladly take my money, but it wouldn't change the slight cupping that my Goodyear's have.

Gil

[Richard And Babs Ames]

We went through "erosive tire wear" second rib wearing at an acclerated rate on Goodyear G159 and G670 RV in the 275/70/R 22.5 H size. Was at JoSam in Orlando, FL a major truck alignment equiptmen sales center and shop and talked to the service manager who stated that the erosive wear problem seemed to be caused by the way Goodyear builds their tire as he does not see it in other brands. We went to Michelin XZA 2 Energy this spring on the front and the same size is rated J instead of H and the ride and handeling is much improved as Michelin builds a very round tire. Have not seen any unusual  wear pattern in the miles we have so far.

[Robert Mathis]

I had serious wear on the inside of my front driver's side tire, bad enough, in fact, that we stopped 1/2 way back from Wyoming and had the steer and tag wheels swapped. Went to JoSam in Orlando and had a three axle alignment done. Our tag axle was seriously out of alignment, with both wheels toed to the right, which was "steering" the coach left, causing the wear. After the alignment, the coach now tracks perfectly straight and the wear problem was solved. I then replaced the worn tire. Since you have a tag axle, it might not hurt to have it checked out. Most shops are not equipped to check, must less correct the alignment on tag and drive axles.

[Gil_Johnson]

I had serious wear on the inside of my front driver's side tire, bad enough, in fact, that we stopped 1/2 way back from Wyoming and had the steer and tag wheels swapped. Went to JoSam in Orlando and had a three axle alignment done. Our tag axle was seriously out of alignment, with both wheels toed to the right, which was "steering" the coach left, causing the wear. After the alignment, the coach now tracks perfectly straight and the wear problem was solved. I then replaced the worn tire. Since you have a tag axle, it might not hurt to have it checked out. Most shops are not equipped to check, must less correct the alignment on tag and drive axles.

They could actually adjust your tag axle?  Although I haven't looked at the axle attachment points very well, I assumed they were fix mounted to that huge floating box frame.  Of course, we all know what it means when we assume...

Gil
08 Contessa