South of Birmingham and got a nail in the passenger side tag tire sidewall - Love’s said they won’t touch it and I don’t blame them. They have 1 Yokohama 11R 24.5 tire in stock and are trying to find another one. There is going to be a small difference in tire height due to used tread between the drive dual tires and the tag tires. Will this height difference be enough to worry about on the rest of our trip to TX. Our tires are about 8 years old and we just replaced the front 365s about a month or so ago. It’s time to replace the rear tires anyway but were going to wait until after our trip… oh, well… Once we are near Houston we will order 4 more Yokohamas to match. I miss having the extra tire on top of the roof when we had the Wanderlodge… lol
So they cannot locate any tires in our size so we decided to replace just the tag for now and will replace all of them when we return home in a few weeks.
Did the nail go all the way through to cause air loss? If it's not leaking I would pull the nail out with pliers and continue onward. If you replace the tire, a little taller should not be an issue, as the tag is not a powered wheel. I have had really good results with Yokohama tires on my coach. Be sure to get at least load range H
Adrian, and others who may utilize this info in the future.
I too caught a nail once in the outer 1 inch of tread on one of the tag tires. The tire shop would not fix it, saying the fix would not last because of the flexure in that area. I have also read in the Michelin tire book something to the same effect.
Like you, the choice of tires was limited where we were located. Given that the tag is completely independent of all other tires, and that it carries about 5000 lbs on our coach, I felt comfortable going with one new tire, and one with a lesser load range to replace the tag tire.
This approach would NOT work on any of the drive tires because of any differences in rolling radius, but the tag is a unique situation.
If you stare at the load inflation tables long enough you will see that IF you go with a lower load range the pressure require is NOT different at the loads the tags carry on our era coaches.
And while at it, I will throw in one more tidbit. Obviously, at 5K per tire, the pressure required doesn’t really show up on the inflation tables. Once I lowered the tag tire psi all the way to 70 just to see if it effected handling or ride quality. I couldn’t feel any difference, but in 500 miles I did notice a cupping wear pattern developing on the tag tire. So I increased the tag tire psi back to 100 psi and the wear pattern stopped, and eventually disappeared.
I ran that tire for four years without a single issue.
Richard and Rhonda Entrekin
99 Newell, 512
Maverick Hybrid Toad
Inverness, FL (when we're home )
Thanks Richard. We ended up getting two retread tires temporarily, they were the equivalent of buying one new tire and seem to be fine. We are getting 6 new General RA tires tomorrow and will be having a complete alignment done by a shop here in Houston (Southern Tire Mart) by a very knowledgable mechanic (thanks Rudy!!!). Then off we go to Rudy’s to get our AquaHot serviced while visiting the Houston area for my Dad’s 90th birthday. Hoping to head home to AL on Sunday afternoon and all should be working very well on the coach. New exhaust, new front brakes, new drive/tag tires… now all I have to do is put the living room back together again and our coach is ready to roll (or sell lol) …
At Southern Tire in Conroe on our way to Rudy’s - I ended up getting 6 new General RA tires with date code 2923 (couple months old) so should be good to go on tires :-) … it’s only money and time
)