16.5 load range E rubber

R

ron & gina

New member
Apr 23, 1999
397
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0
Hi Ritch,

Have the same problem here, Place I went to showed 4 on the computer at
warehouse But they never found them, and I never received them.(then wanted
to sell me Firestones, saying it'll be no problem) They were waiting on
tires ordered. I found acouple of places within afew hundred miles, one has
2, and the other 4, and waiting on orders also. Just I'll have to add afew
hours to our trip. Guess I'll call and see if they will let me pay for the
tires on the phone.

Hope you find some before your trip!!! The four tires where in Ca. Price
difference between here and Bakersfield was about 70.00 for two out the door
@ $304/370.

Ron&Gina
73 Pumpkin-Rose
Ft. Mohave, AZ.
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Ritch Hwang"
To:
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2000 11:52 AM
Subject: GMC: 16.5 load range E rubber

> Netters:
>
> Well after over 2 weeks of waiting for 4 Bridgestone R260 8.75R16.5 E's to
> show up to replace my 7 year old D's I am getting desperate. The people
> I'm dealing with tells me there's a nationwide shortage of these tires and
> no telling when they'll be available. I need tires *now* in order to make
> the Gilbert's mini-rally. No way am I gonna run freeway speeds on 7 year
> old rubber.
>
> Any suggestions for alternatives would be much appreciated!!
>
> TIA
> Ritch
> 76 Birchaven
>
 
>Hi Ritch,
>
>Have the same problem here, Place I went to showed 4 on the computer at
>warehouse But they never found them, and I never received them.(then wanted
>to sell me Firestones, saying it'll be no problem) They were waiting on
>tires ordered. I found acouple of places within afew hundred miles, one has
>2, and the other 4, and waiting on orders also. Just I'll have to add afew
>hours to our trip. Guess I'll call and see if they will let me pay for the
>tires on the phone.
>
>Hope you find some before your trip!!! The four tires where in Ca. Price
>difference between here and Bakersfield was about 70.00 for two out the door
>@ $304/370.
>
>Ron&Gina
>73 Pumpkin-Rose
>Ft. Mohave, AZ.

Same problem here too. The tire shop I frequent had to go Hunting for the 4
Brigestones we just put on. They ended up getting them from 3 suppliers and
2 of the date codes were late 98, but at least it's done. I was told the
aging process is very slow until the tire is installed because it is the
flexing action and exposure to uv rays that ages the tire. Any comments?
BTW, the 4 were $614 out the door.

Dave (advisor/navigator) & Dege (ALL else), '76 Royale, Santa Barbara, CA
 
Netters:

Well after over 2 weeks of waiting for 4 Bridgestone R260 8.75R16.5 E's to
show up to replace my 7 year old D's I am getting desperate. The people
I'm dealing with tells me there's a nationwide shortage of these tires and
no telling when they'll be available. I need tires *now* in order to make
the Gilbert's mini-rally. No way am I gonna run freeway speeds on 7 year
old rubber.

Any suggestions for alternatives would be much appreciated!!

TIA
Ritch
76 Birchaven
 
Also check, Discount Tires also called Americas Tires,

I agree, timing might make it hard, but I would not accept old tires.....
Age is the killer for us, not the pressure, cords, size, etc.

gene

>> I was told the aging process is very slow until the tire is installed
>because it is
>> the flexing action and exposure to uv rays that ages the tire. Any
>> comments?
>
>I understood it the other way around. It is the lack of flexing that
>causes the tire to deteriorate.
>
>Anyway, have any of you looking for tires tried The Tire Rack? They sell
>huge amounts of tires and I would think they have some squeeze with
>distributors.
>
>http://www.tirerack.com
>
>
>>
>>
>
> David Lee Greenberg
> GMC Motorhome Registry
>Dedicated to the preservation of the Classic GMC
> http://www.gmcss.com/registry.htm
>
Genef -- 77PB/ore/ca
GMC MOTORHOME INFORMATION
mr.erf
http://www.california.com/~eagle/
 
>Anyway, have any of you looking for tires tried The Tire Rack? They sell
>huge amounts of tires and I would think they have some squeeze with
>distributors.
>
>http://www.tirerack.com
>
Dave, et. al:
The Tire Rack, and other "mail order" distributors certainly have some good
prices. However, getting those tires mounted and getting any needed follow
up service can be problematic. In my experience, tire shops are often
either reluctant or expensive when asked to install or adjust tires
purchased elsewhere. Without access to a cooperative tire shop, most of us
are limited to shopping local retailers. Another disadvantage to having
tires shipped in is having to lug them to the installer. I would suspect
many "netters" would like to take advantage of the great prices, but need
some advice as to avoiding the disadvantages. Any suggestions?

Dave (advisor/navigator) & Dege (ALL else), '76 Royale, Santa Barbara, CA
 
> I was told the aging process is very slow until the tire is installed
because it is
> the flexing action and exposure to uv rays that ages the tire. Any
> comments?

I understood it the other way around. It is the lack of flexing that
causes the tire to deteriorate.

Anyway, have any of you looking for tires tried The Tire Rack? They sell
huge amounts of tires and I would think they have some squeeze with
distributors.

http://www.tirerack.com

>
>

David Lee Greenberg
GMC Motorhome Registry
Dedicated to the preservation of the Classic GMC
http://www.gmcss.com/registry.htm
 
> Well after over 2 weeks of waiting for 4 Bridgestone R260 8.75R16.5 E's to
> show up to replace my 7 year old D's I am getting desperate. The people
> I'm dealing with tells me there's a nationwide shortage of these tires and
> no telling when they'll be available. I need tires *now* in order to make
> the Gilbert's mini-rally. No way am I gonna run freeway speeds on 7 year
> old rubber.
>
> Any suggestions for alternatives would be much appreciated!!
>

Ritch,
I just got new tires for my coach. I wrote up something a couple of weeks ago
about my experiences and so will just repeat that information. I'm not sure
that I even submitted it to the web. The tires I ordered were for my new
Alcoa's. Costco ended up being cheaper then even Sam's. Discount Tire was
the most expensive. I didn't try to get prices for Goodyear G159's,
Bridgestones or any of the other brands.

I called at least 6 places here in Southwest Michigan and got prices for six
MICHELIN LT225/75R16 XPS RIB LRE tires from as low as $800 from Costco to
$1100 for the six at Discount Tire. So I decided to go with Costco to save
$300. I had to special order the tires. I was told it would take a week to
10 days. I ordered them on Thursday and got them the following Thursday.
The guy at Costco said there would be no problem balancing the tires with my
Alcoa wheels. He does them everyday so he said. By the way the guy at Belle
Tire said he could have the tires in a few days. But Costco had the best
price.

Costco does stock a Michelin E rated tire for less. I almost went with the
cheaper tire until I realized that it didn't have all steel side wall
construction. I figured I better go with the all steel RIB tire.

Well I showed up with my GMC, Alcoa Wheels and a trailer to haul away the old
wheels at the Costco Tire Dept. in Madison Heights, Michigan. The first part
went well. They mounted the tires on my Alcoa rims just fine. I had them
pump the tires up to 80 PSI to take full advantage of the tire's strength. I
found it interesting that the RIB tires are made in Germany. Well when it
came to balancing them, everything fell apart.

Their balancing guy messed with the first tire for about 20 minutes. He
installed weights and removed weights but finally he figured he had it
balanced. He was using a cone style adapter on his machine. I asked him to
rotate the wheel 180 degrees on his machine and see if it was still balanced.
Well it was not balanced and he remarked it was as if it had never been
balanced. They cheerfully gave me back my money for the balancing and a
coupon for a free hot dog for my trouble.

I decided to go to Discount Tire with my mounted tires because I knew they had
a Hunter balancing machine and I had heard that it was the best machine for
balancing our wheels. I arrived at Discount Tire in the middle of a
thunderstorm at about 5:00PM, but they said they would balance my wheels. It
started out the same as with Costco. Finally the main man of tire balancing
there came out and took charge. He decided that they needed to use an 8 lug
adapter plate with the Hunter machine. He balanced the first tire with the
adapter plate and then rotated it 180 degrees. It came out the same on the
2nd try as the first. So I said go ahead and do the other 5 the same way. He
did that. It cost me $12 a tire (which was $3 more then Costco) to have them
balanced. Because of the ongoing thunderstorm and the fact they were getting
ready to close they couldn't mount the tires on the GMC. I took the
tire/wheels home on my trailer. I was happy to at least have the tires
mounted on the wheels and balanced.

Then the fun began. Because I was planning on leaving on a trip the next day
with the GMC I decided to to install the new wheels on the GMC myself. Even
though it was raining I figured that it would be easy because after all I have
an impact wrench and the appropriate jacks. WRONG. I didn't have any sockets
to fit the new Alcoa lug nuts which are bigger then the stock ones. Also, my
bottle jack must have leaked out its fluid as it didn't work any more. So it
was off to Sears to get some bigger sockets for my impact wrench (used at a
low torque setting) and fluid for the bottle jack.

Got back from Sears and managed to R&R all the wheels in under an hour.

Richard Waters
'76 PB, Troy, MI
 
Thanks for all the quick replies to my dilemma.

It seems unlikely the Bridgestones will come in any time soon given the
difficulties of others in obtaining them. Checked out the Tire Rack site
and the Michelin XPS Rib *is* available in 16.5 at $146 each (ouch!) as
opposed to $123 each for the Bridgestone R260's when I checked pricing
there a couple months ago. They didn't have any Bridegestones at this time
either. There just isn't a whole lot of choices for E rated all-steel
radials in 8.75R16.5 out here, sigh.

Much as I lust after Alcoas, I just can't justify the expense right now.
So I guess I'll shop around (reluctantly) locally for the Michelins
tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to find some and won't get gouged too
badly....

Regards,
Ritch
76 Birch
 
>
> >Anyway, have any of you looking for tires tried The Tire Rack? They
> sell huge amounts of tires and I would think they have some squeeze
with
> >distributors.
> >
> >http://www.tirerack.com
> >
> Dave, et. al:
> The Tire Rack, and other "mail order" distributors certainly have
> some good prices. However, getting those tires mounted and getting any
needed
> follow up service can be problematic. In my experience, tire shops are
> often either reluctant or expensive when asked to install or adjust
tires
> purchased elsewhere.

I suppose getting them adjusted may be a problem if you let it be one. I
have never
had a problem getting adjustment and I would expect tires will give you
trouble down
the highway not in your backyard, eh? I would not be too happy if a
Bridgestone/Firestone
dealer was shy about meeting his obligations to me regardless of where I
bought the tires.

I ordered 14 tires from Tire Rack and had them shipped to Sirum's for me,
him and
another owner. Needless to say he was happy to charge me for mounting as
opposed to
my paying someone else.

Buy locally when you can but the msgs I read said the guys were
unsuccessful in getting
delivery from their usual sources. This was more about supply than
pricing. I offered a possible
solution.

David Lee Greenberg
GMC Motorhome Registry
200 MacFarlane Drive
Delray Beach, FL 33483-6829
http://www.gmcss.com/registry.htm
 
> In my experience you can shop locally for tires and get just as good
> a price. By the time you pay for the tire, pay shipping, pay to have
> them mounted, there is little if any savings.

As I stated in a previous post on this subject, price wasn't what I
heard.
I heard guys say they couldn't get delivery fast enough.

However, as to price...let me tell you my experience with Tire rack.

Tire cost each $100
Shipping " 6

Total delivered $106 Plus Mounting

No State tax (in FL =6%) same as shipping expense
No disposal Fee...Miniscule -Maybe $2.00 each

Sirum's cost for the same tire from his local distributor $122
Plus his profit , Say 10%? 12
Plus 6% tax plus $2.00 disposal fee.
13
Total
$147 Plus Mounting

Times 7 tires?

David Lee Greenberg
GMC Motorhome Registry
200 MacFarlane Drive
Delray Beach, FL 33483-6829
http://www.gmcss.com/registry.htm
 
> Boy Dave I can honestly say that is not experience at all. I would
> never buy tires from a GMC dealer and do not think that is a valid
comparison.
> I cant believe you can get an all steel tire to fit the GMC for $106,
but I
> am willing to be corrected. What kind was it?

These were the Bridgestone LRE Poly/Steel tires and I didn't buy them
thru
the Net but thru Tire Rack's magazine ads in Car & Driver. That's what I
did in 1994
and it worked for me.

The fact that we have different experiences to share is what makes this
GMC Net so great.

David Lee Greenberg
GMC Motorhome Registry
200 MacFarlane Drive
Delray Beach, FL 33483-6829
http://www.gmcss.com/registry.htm
 
Hi Rich,

I'm a week behind on E-mail so maybe you've solved this problem
already. If not, this is my experience. Don't buy the firestone
steeltex radials. They are not all steel and will give problems on this
coach. However I think their Bridgestone R 260 is a good all steel tire
and should work fine. The previous owner of my coach had good luck with
them. I have had mine one year and pleased so far. I found these tires
in my local Sears Tire store, looking thru his catalog. Were about $120
. Be sure to get load range E. The store tried to tell me load range D
would be fine. They also tried to sell me another tire that was not all
- -steel, don't fall for it. Also I've had good luck with the tire powder
balancing and no weights. It's fairly cheap if you have the dealer add
the powder as he mounts your tires. Here again, you will probably need
to be the expert and bring the proper amount for ea tire in separate zip
loc bags, so they don't get confused on how much. Most of these Sears
stores know nothing about truck tires. Their equipment wouldn't even
pull my old tires off the rim until we cut the bead strands with a cut
off wheel. They should charge you very little to pour the bag of powder
into the tire and you will have no balance charge at all.

I hope this helps
Hugh Fellows
 
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