I read the following post from a tire dealer on an RV newsgroup. I thought
that
some of you might be interested. No new news here, but it's a nice general
summary. Reposting falls under the expected use of newgroup postings. PLease
keep the author's address with any copies.
Henry
Howdy. I figured I'd share some knowledge(?) with you regarding tires.
I'm 42 and was born and raised in the tire business by my father. My
father, just having gone to the Lord last August, was a very honest and
caring person. Hopefully he has handed down some of his honesty and
care to me, thus I'll try to share a little tire info with you.
First, John, I'm very pleased to hear that your incident ended so well,
many do not.
Tires today are manufactured in a competitive market where every
manufacturer is bragging 50, 60, 70,...100 thousand mile warranties!
Now wait a minute, somethings screwy here from my point of view. Until
the last few years most tire-manufacturers had their pro-rated
warranties *and* a time limit on the warranty...normally four years. In
the last few years most of them have increased the time limit to around
six years.
Now, think about it...if you average 12,000 miles a year (seems like a
lot to me, but I'm the cat that just bought my first RV, a '74 Dodge
Class C with drooping rear end!) it would take you 5 years to wear out a
60k mile set of tires. If you only average around 6k miles a year it
would take you 10 years to wear the set of tires out and by that time
the "casing"(body) of the tire would be ancient. When the casing wears
out you are much more apt to start getting the tread seperations,
cracking beads, shoulder seps, and a few other maladies. You need to
remember that the casing is what holds most everything together...tread,
sidewall, bead, etc.,.
From my years in the business it seems that the best mileage tires are
the ones that wear out in about 4 years, whatever your driving mileage
might be. In other words, if you drive cross-country a lot and rack
up loads of miles...buy a high-mileage tire, on the other hand if
you don't put many miles on the RV buy a lower-mileage tire. That way
the casing is still "alive" but aging when the tread is finally gone
and you know (by eyeballing the tread) that it's time to replace the
tires. That way you get to start over with completely fresh tires
that are new and "alive". It's very deceiving to look at your tires and
see good-looking, deep tread on them, and yet the casing is old and
drying out.
On every tire is a DOT(Dept. of Transportation) number. This number
designates the manufacturer, plant, etc., *AND* the date of
manufacturer. Almost without exception (probably some imports might be
different) the last 3 digits represent the date of manufacturer. The
first two of these three digits represent the week and the last digit
the year. The DOT number is stamped only on one side of the tire and is
normally on the "unstyled" or "black-wall" side of the tire so you might
have to crawl under the RV and look for the number from the inside. If
the tire is over four years old check it out good...from the beads to
the center of the tread.
What do you look for? (This applies to new tires, too.)Well, anything
that doesn't look "right". Excessive cracks appearing in the channels
between the ribs, non-uniformity of the tire in any area, cuts, nails,
etc.,. Also note that an "inny", a depression in the sidewall of a tire
is actually normal, but if you see an "outy" that bulges outward that
tire should be replaced asap.
One thing that you should really check out is the bead area of your
tires. A common weakness of heavier-ply RV-sized tires is the area just
above the actual bead. This area should be inspected for splits running
parallel with the bead. These splits can be from a fraction of an
inch long to completely going around the tire. The splits, in the
beginning, will almost look like razor-blade slices and over a period of
time they will gap open more and more, eventually causing a catastrophic
failure. CHECK THE BEAD AREA!
All tires will exhibit what is called "weather checking" or as folks
call it "dry-rotting". Dry-rotting is much more serious than
weather-checking, being as weather-checking is primarily superficial/
cosmetic and of no significance.
Dry-rotting normally happens when a tire is flat and sits in that state
for a time, normally causing the flexed area to crack badly.
Dry-rotting is also caused from not "oiling" your tire. A tire is a
petroleum product and if it sits static (not moving) for an extended
time it will begin to "dry out". To prevent this simply drive the
vehicle occasionally to keep the rubber "alive". RV's and boat-trailers
are something we seldom see with worn-out tires on them...they usually
are replaced because of dry-rotting caused by sitting up flat or either
from not being used or replaced simply because of age.
Running out of time here so let me hit a few more points.
Get an AIR GAUGE and USE IT! Radial tires have what is called sidewall
deflection...most folks refer to it as the "baggy look". It's really
hard to tell visually whether a radial is low in air or not. Buy a GOOD
air gauge. Get your tire dealer to air your tires up to operating
pressure and then check them with YOUR gauge, if there's any
discreptancy ask him/her to get a different gauge and stick the tires
with it to see if one or the other of the gauges is reading
incorrectly...a small difference is ok, it's not rocket science, ya
know.
Tires that are run underinflated will wear faster and at times
fail because of overload (if they're under-inflated then they're
overloaded, aren't they?). Tires that are overinflated will also wear
faster and are more subject to impact damage because they don't have the
shock-absorption capabilities that they would have at correct air
pressure.
Speaking of the "bag" aspect of radial tires... The sidewall of a
radial tire is it's weakest point...most of the time only being built
with a minimum of plies in it. Be careful making those turns and keep
from curbing your tires. Impacting the sidewalls can destroy the tire
and a lot of times it's a delayed destruction...waiting till the tire
gets heated up to highway speeds. Also, impact damage can be sustained
when you run over a blunt object (rock?) in the road...you hold your
breath and wait to see if anything blows but it doesn't...later on,
sometimes much later on you discover a knot on one of your tires. The
impact actually "bruised" your tire, letting air seep in between the
casing and the tread rubber.
If you're driving down the road and "something feels funny" stop and
check your tires. It could be a separated tire that's getting ready to
blow or it could be a flat tire. A flat tire on a dual is hard to
detect, but it will tend to give you a sense of swaying and instability.
A few problems with running a tire flat are basically that the tire is
non-repairable, it can self-destruct, and it can catch on fire. Ever
try to extinguish a burning tire?
Don't "plug" a tire. It should be patched from the inside. When a nail
or other object enters the tread of a tire it can actually rub against
the inside of the sidewall, wearing through cords of the casing. Though
you plug it and all appears well, the broken cords have weakened the
casing and tire-failure can result. If you have a tire than has been
run flat a short distance and appears to be repairable be sure to tell
the repairman what happened...the flexing of the sidewall of a flat tire
can weaken the cords in the sidewall (kinda like taking a wire and
bending it back and forth till it gets hot and breaks), this creates the
atmosphere for a "zipper" explosion where the tire's sidewall suddenly
rips open parallel with the bead...every few months a tire technician
dies due to a sudden zipper explosion. They're DEADLY!
Along with "don't plug a tire", don't use "fix-a-flat". Tire repairmen
despise it because it makes it almost impossible to glue a patch to the
tire after it's had fix-a-flat in it. Also, if you use it be sure to
tell the tire repairman...some of the propellant is flamable/explosive.
Of course if I was in the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere and
no help in sight, I'd use fix-a-flat, have a 12-volt air-compressor and
have a plug-kit handy, too. We gotta look at our options, ya know.
Well, that's about it...times fleeting. Remember, check your air
pressure and visually inspect the rubber. It's the only thing between
the asphalt and you. Respect air-pressure...it can be DEADLY!!!
Hopefully I didn't ramble too much. Hope some of this helped.
Take care and God bless u es urs,
Ed Welch
KF4KRV
L.A. (Lower Alabama)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Henry Davis Consulting, Inc / new product consulting
PO Box 1270 / product readiness reviews
Soquel, Ca 95073 / IP reviews
ph: (831) 462-5199 / full service marketing
fax: (831) 462-5198
http://www.henry-davis.com/ http://www.henry-davis.com
that
some of you might be interested. No new news here, but it's a nice general
summary. Reposting falls under the expected use of newgroup postings. PLease
keep the author's address with any copies.
Henry
Howdy. I figured I'd share some knowledge(?) with you regarding tires.
I'm 42 and was born and raised in the tire business by my father. My
father, just having gone to the Lord last August, was a very honest and
caring person. Hopefully he has handed down some of his honesty and
care to me, thus I'll try to share a little tire info with you.
First, John, I'm very pleased to hear that your incident ended so well,
many do not.
Tires today are manufactured in a competitive market where every
manufacturer is bragging 50, 60, 70,...100 thousand mile warranties!
Now wait a minute, somethings screwy here from my point of view. Until
the last few years most tire-manufacturers had their pro-rated
warranties *and* a time limit on the warranty...normally four years. In
the last few years most of them have increased the time limit to around
six years.
Now, think about it...if you average 12,000 miles a year (seems like a
lot to me, but I'm the cat that just bought my first RV, a '74 Dodge
Class C with drooping rear end!) it would take you 5 years to wear out a
60k mile set of tires. If you only average around 6k miles a year it
would take you 10 years to wear the set of tires out and by that time
the "casing"(body) of the tire would be ancient. When the casing wears
out you are much more apt to start getting the tread seperations,
cracking beads, shoulder seps, and a few other maladies. You need to
remember that the casing is what holds most everything together...tread,
sidewall, bead, etc.,.
From my years in the business it seems that the best mileage tires are
the ones that wear out in about 4 years, whatever your driving mileage
might be. In other words, if you drive cross-country a lot and rack
up loads of miles...buy a high-mileage tire, on the other hand if
you don't put many miles on the RV buy a lower-mileage tire. That way
the casing is still "alive" but aging when the tread is finally gone
and you know (by eyeballing the tread) that it's time to replace the
tires. That way you get to start over with completely fresh tires
that are new and "alive". It's very deceiving to look at your tires and
see good-looking, deep tread on them, and yet the casing is old and
drying out.
On every tire is a DOT(Dept. of Transportation) number. This number
designates the manufacturer, plant, etc., *AND* the date of
manufacturer. Almost without exception (probably some imports might be
different) the last 3 digits represent the date of manufacturer. The
first two of these three digits represent the week and the last digit
the year. The DOT number is stamped only on one side of the tire and is
normally on the "unstyled" or "black-wall" side of the tire so you might
have to crawl under the RV and look for the number from the inside. If
the tire is over four years old check it out good...from the beads to
the center of the tread.
What do you look for? (This applies to new tires, too.)Well, anything
that doesn't look "right". Excessive cracks appearing in the channels
between the ribs, non-uniformity of the tire in any area, cuts, nails,
etc.,. Also note that an "inny", a depression in the sidewall of a tire
is actually normal, but if you see an "outy" that bulges outward that
tire should be replaced asap.
One thing that you should really check out is the bead area of your
tires. A common weakness of heavier-ply RV-sized tires is the area just
above the actual bead. This area should be inspected for splits running
parallel with the bead. These splits can be from a fraction of an
inch long to completely going around the tire. The splits, in the
beginning, will almost look like razor-blade slices and over a period of
time they will gap open more and more, eventually causing a catastrophic
failure. CHECK THE BEAD AREA!
All tires will exhibit what is called "weather checking" or as folks
call it "dry-rotting". Dry-rotting is much more serious than
weather-checking, being as weather-checking is primarily superficial/
cosmetic and of no significance.
Dry-rotting normally happens when a tire is flat and sits in that state
for a time, normally causing the flexed area to crack badly.
Dry-rotting is also caused from not "oiling" your tire. A tire is a
petroleum product and if it sits static (not moving) for an extended
time it will begin to "dry out". To prevent this simply drive the
vehicle occasionally to keep the rubber "alive". RV's and boat-trailers
are something we seldom see with worn-out tires on them...they usually
are replaced because of dry-rotting caused by sitting up flat or either
from not being used or replaced simply because of age.
Running out of time here so let me hit a few more points.
Get an AIR GAUGE and USE IT! Radial tires have what is called sidewall
deflection...most folks refer to it as the "baggy look". It's really
hard to tell visually whether a radial is low in air or not. Buy a GOOD
air gauge. Get your tire dealer to air your tires up to operating
pressure and then check them with YOUR gauge, if there's any
discreptancy ask him/her to get a different gauge and stick the tires
with it to see if one or the other of the gauges is reading
incorrectly...a small difference is ok, it's not rocket science, ya
know.
Tires that are run underinflated will wear faster and at timesfail because of overload (if they're under-inflated then they're
overloaded, aren't they?). Tires that are overinflated will also wear
faster and are more subject to impact damage because they don't have the
shock-absorption capabilities that they would have at correct air
pressure.
Speaking of the "bag" aspect of radial tires... The sidewall of a
radial tire is it's weakest point...most of the time only being built
with a minimum of plies in it. Be careful making those turns and keep
from curbing your tires. Impacting the sidewalls can destroy the tire
and a lot of times it's a delayed destruction...waiting till the tire
gets heated up to highway speeds. Also, impact damage can be sustained
when you run over a blunt object (rock?) in the road...you hold your
breath and wait to see if anything blows but it doesn't...later on,
sometimes much later on you discover a knot on one of your tires. The
impact actually "bruised" your tire, letting air seep in between the
casing and the tread rubber.
If you're driving down the road and "something feels funny" stop and
check your tires. It could be a separated tire that's getting ready to
blow or it could be a flat tire. A flat tire on a dual is hard to
detect, but it will tend to give you a sense of swaying and instability.
A few problems with running a tire flat are basically that the tire is
non-repairable, it can self-destruct, and it can catch on fire. Ever
try to extinguish a burning tire?
Don't "plug" a tire. It should be patched from the inside. When a nail
or other object enters the tread of a tire it can actually rub against
the inside of the sidewall, wearing through cords of the casing. Though
you plug it and all appears well, the broken cords have weakened the
casing and tire-failure can result. If you have a tire than has been
run flat a short distance and appears to be repairable be sure to tell
the repairman what happened...the flexing of the sidewall of a flat tire
can weaken the cords in the sidewall (kinda like taking a wire and
bending it back and forth till it gets hot and breaks), this creates the
atmosphere for a "zipper" explosion where the tire's sidewall suddenly
rips open parallel with the bead...every few months a tire technician
dies due to a sudden zipper explosion. They're DEADLY!
Along with "don't plug a tire", don't use "fix-a-flat". Tire repairmen
despise it because it makes it almost impossible to glue a patch to the
tire after it's had fix-a-flat in it. Also, if you use it be sure to
tell the tire repairman...some of the propellant is flamable/explosive.
Of course if I was in the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere and
no help in sight, I'd use fix-a-flat, have a 12-volt air-compressor and
have a plug-kit handy, too. We gotta look at our options, ya know.
Well, that's about it...times fleeting. Remember, check your air
pressure and visually inspect the rubber. It's the only thing between
the asphalt and you. Respect air-pressure...it can be DEADLY!!!
Hopefully I didn't ramble too much. Hope some of this helped.
Take care and God bless u es urs,
Ed Welch
KF4KRV
L.A. (Lower Alabama)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Henry Davis Consulting, Inc / new product consulting
PO Box 1270 / product readiness reviews
Soquel, Ca 95073 / IP reviews
ph: (831) 462-5199 / full service marketing
fax: (831) 462-5198
http://www.henry-davis.com/ http://www.henry-davis.com
