MS Tire Balance

[RGordon]

I have recently looked at my 17.5 wheels on my MS and cannot see any sign of wheel balance weights. Do they not come from factory with tires balanced. I would doubt they are perfect and do not need balancing. Any thoughts?

[Red Ram]

Ron I believe it is a rare tire and wheel that does not require balancing. I just looked at mine and they have no balance weights on them either. My last 5th wheel that I installed new G rated tires all needed some balancing.

I am going to take mine in to the tire shop when I return from this trip and have them done. Everything that rotates benifits when they are in balance.

[sigo'suite]

FWIW, I just had new 17.5" tires and wheels put on my coach and the Good Year store did balance them.

[bstark]

I had mine balanced after purchase and one tire could not be balanced to within satisfactory specs and it eventually developed "cupping". The symptoms are: 38RL3 - flatware drawer fills up with "black powder" from the nickel rubbing off the flatware as it is being continually "jostled" in that center island from any out-of-balance tires. Sawdust from cabinetry joints rubbing together.

After replacing the offending 17.5" tire, all the above syptoms dissappeared. :D

[Diesel-Gypsy]

Bruce, you are just TOO aware of every friggen thing that is going on!!! :lol:

Sorry to hi-jack the thread..So, I'll ry to add something pertinant..:
Sigo, who did the tire & wheel swap?
Did they re-lug the hubs / drum?
If it's not too personal, what was the final cost?
These G-rated 16" Goodyears worry me constantly... :?

Rick

[jdwilson3]

Have you ever tried Equal in the tires?

[sigo'suite]

Sigo, who did the tire & wheel swap?
Did they re-lug the hubs / drum?
If it's not too personal, what was the final cost?
These G-rated 16" Goodyears worry me constantly... :?
Rick

I bought the wheels online at:
http://www.trailertiresandwheels.net/site/1284278/product/0377865

As you will note if you read about these wheels on the website, they do not require the changing of wheel studs; i.e. they still use the 9/16" studs and come complete with lugnuts and center caps. Thus they would work with either the 7000# or 8000# axles, which is what I already have. With the Alcoa's you have no choice but to go to the 8000# axles because they are hub piloted, require 5/8" studs etc.; all at considerable additional cost even if you have the 8000# axles.

You can search an earlier post of mine which gives all the information which I got from SouthWest Wheel in Dallas when I was doing my research prior to the change.

I bought Good Year G114 tires from the local dealer after doing quite a bit of research on different tires, but came to the conclusion that due to Good Year's history of stepping up to the plate when failures occurred I would stick with them.

Opted to replace all 4 and spare, 5 tires & wheels $2586.46 total out the door and I am real happy with them thusfar if for no other reason than peace of mind.

Having said that,
FOR SALE: 4 Good Year 16" G614 tires with some less than 5000 miles on Aluminum wheels and 1 never on the ground on a steel wheel.

[Diesel-Gypsy]

Thanks Ron!!

I'm tempted to go that same route for the exact same reason.
I should do it before I wind up sitting on the side of the road with my fender blown away... :?

I am not over-weight on my axles by any means, I,ve weighed it as recently as 3 weekls ago, and I'm still under weight, but I just don't trust the GY 614's. :cry:

Rick

[traveler]

I, too, have decided to stick with Goodyear. For one thing, I can not find another G rated tire-16"- that I like. I will, however change them out at about 17,000 miles or so. That is about 3 years for me.

At that mileage they still look pretty good.

I use Pressure Pro monitors and they work fine. I especially like not having to use a guage to measure tire pressures while I am traveling.

I had my first blowout last summer and did some minor damage to the MS. Goodyear paid for the new tire and all damage, not just my insurance deducitible. About $1870.

I did find a little problem in finding tires on the road. These tires are not plentiful. When I went to buy, there was one in Alburquerque-I bought it.
One in Flagstaff. I bought that one too. and two in Portland. I bought one of those. Bottom line, I now have new tires, plus two spares. One is on a rim. The other lives in the basement. It is not good, I found, not to be able to get a tire when you want one. Like at 3 pm on a Saturday afternoon, 40 miles west of Amarillo.

Having said all of this, who makes a decent G rated 16 inch tire. I do not want to go to 17.5 inch tires. I am not overloaded--about 16,500 lbs loaded out--and tow with a 2006 dually F350 Tow boss, which works great, both pulling and stopping and has proven to be a very stable tow vehicle.

One last thing. Is it a foregone conclusion that with 17.5 inch 125 psi tires that you will not have a blowout or tread separation? I get the impression from all tha posts that this solves the blowout issue. I find that a little hard to believe. I will say this, however, if changing to the larger tires would guarantee no blowout-ever- it would be worth the cost.

[WildJohn]

The ONLY guarantee in life is that there are NO GUARANTEES in life.

[sigo'suite]

The ONLY guarantee in life is that there are NO GUARANTEES in life.

You got that right John.

Every since Adam ate that durned apple there ain't been no guarantees, cept that some day we will all be planted 6' under and none of this will matter a whit!! :shock:

In the meantime, ain't it fun!!!!!!!!! :lol: :lol:

[bstark]

Traveler: The part that followed your post "No Guarantees" does indeed hold true. Our 38RL3 with 17.5" tires shed the entire tread surface of the streetside front tire when the trailer was less than 6 months old. I didn't even know it had happened until I noticed the "shiny" steel belts and missing chunks of fender trim while I was walking back to the rig from a Flying J fuel stop.

The tire stayed inflated so I was able to verify that all four were the same and they had all been inflated to 125 cold. The interesting thing was the infra-red gun I use to check temps showed that one was cooler than the other three so I guess steel belts run cooler with ashphalt contact then rubber. :lol:

[Okie]

Bruce,
What brand of tires are you running?

Okie

[bstark]

Okie: The Goodyears that were fitted as standard to the 17.5" at the factory.

[Okie]

Gee thats what ripped up both sides of my trailer. Good year was good enogh to take care of the expences but what about the time??

Okie

[bstark]

That's been my point of contention all along. It's nice that Goodyear (in some cases) will reimburse for costs. Why not just build a better tire?

[Jack in Alaska]

I was hoping the GY G tire problems were being solved. I guess not.
Mine have 22k miles on them, going on 4 yrs. old and we are hitting the road next month. Wish me luck.

[Motor31]

That's been my point of contention all along. It's nice that Goodyear (in some cases) will reimburse for costs. Why not just build a better tire?

I would say that's one of the reasons they dropped the old G159 tire for the newer G614.

Unfortunately like other aspects of the RV situation they can't control the conditions under which their tires are used to include over loading and or under inflation. If the tire as selected by the manufacturer of the RV was marginal for the load to begin with or the load is not balanced evenly by the RV design, it wouldn't take much to exceed the load rating of the tire.

FWIW I have had good luck with the G614's and no complaints. I also check each tire with a pressure gauge each travel day before we move as part of my hitch and go routine.