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Foretravel Motorhome Forums => Foretravel Tech Talk => Topic started by: jimmyhenline on July 17, 2017, 09:49:16 pm

Title: Tires age
Post by: jimmyhenline on July 17, 2017, 09:49:16 pm
Have a ? We bought our RV around 3 years ago  the tires looked new  a tire man looked at them said the case shows about 6 years old we have about 3500 miles on them are there a rule to go by on age,  they don't have any dry rott but was woundering thanks Jimmy
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Old phart phred on July 17, 2017, 11:38:28 pm
Truck tires are a totally different animal then passenger car tires, that being said some casings may last 10 years depending on a huge amount of variables. No garuienteed life, and rules of thumb are for the non professional tire assessment. Too many lawyers in the USA, for anybody to answer this question in a meaningful way.
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Caflashbob on July 17, 2017, 11:40:34 pm
Michelin guarantees their casings for seven years, 700,000 total miles and three retreads.

Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: propman on July 18, 2017, 12:16:13 am
From what I can tell most agree on 7 years for RV tires.
Mine are 7 years old so withing few weeks I am getting 6 new. I had done the same for my previous FT.
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: AC7880 on July 18, 2017, 12:26:35 am
I do the 7 year replacement cycles as well.
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Jimmyjnr on July 18, 2017, 12:51:06 am
Not sure how Michelin guarantees the casing for seven years ??
Against dry rot , sun damage , weather cracking????
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Caflashbob on July 18, 2017, 02:41:12 am
The warranty assumes you are a commercial user and recapping the casing at 200-300k miles.

They are saying the tire casing  can handle for sure the three recaps and the time and the total miles enough to warranty it.

Lots of trucker reports of xza-3+'s going 300k miles from 19/32nds to 5/32nds.  I am doing this from memory but I am pretty sure on the 5/32nds was the minumum safe tread depth normally used.

A retread would probably recover the sides somewhat?

From a trucker forum:

I just replaced my XZA 3+ steers with about 220,000 miles on them. They still had between 8/32 and 10/32 on them. The only reason I changed them out is that I got $100 per tire casing credit and got the new tires for $1013.81, not counting the casing credit. I was not as diligent as I could have been regarding rotating them. Dealer said that if I had rotated them every 50,000, they would have been in even better shape. So, yes, I believe it is not unrealistic to go 300,000 and maybe more on XZA 3+ tires.
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Jimmyjnr on July 18, 2017, 09:16:28 am
No doubt that a trucker can get high mileage from a Michelin, but can't find any trace of a seven year warranty on tire , regarding weather cracks , dry rot etc ??
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: amos.harrison on July 18, 2017, 10:51:54 am
Michelins have higher UV additives than other brands, but they require rolling down the road to release them to the surface.  The longer % of their lifetime the tires aren't rolling, the shorter their lives.  That's why OTR trucks get such long tire lives.
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Caflashbob on July 18, 2017, 11:57:00 am
From the Michelin truck tire web page footnotes:

2) 3-Retread Manufacturing Limited Casing Warranty: 3 retreads or 700,000 miles or 7 years for MICHELIN® XZA3®+ EVERTREADTM when retreaded by an authorized Michelin
Retread Technologies (MRT) Dealer only. See limited warranty for details.
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Jimmyjnr on July 18, 2017, 12:09:12 pm
So just for clarification, you say Michelin guarantees the casing for seven years . If that were the case why didn't members from this forum just get new tires from Michelin when they started weather checking and rusted belts on the inner ??
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Caflashbob on July 18, 2017, 02:32:29 pm
Not sure when this 7 years started and it only applies through a Michelin retread technologies dealer on retreading a worn out tire.

Rusted cord belts means non dry air was used.  Not a issue on a truck as they wear out quicker.

Tires were obviously not made for an Rv as was stated the continious use releases the ozone additives.

Our use requires tire covers to lessen the ozone sidewall cracking.

I do not work for Michelin.  My only purpose was to show the possible casing life expectancy in a commercial use.

As time goes by the possible difference in the xza-3+'s and the new energy x may show a different result and than the older Michelins that did have surface cracking.

For long term use I never use any air other than the coach dry air or dry nitrogen.

And used no water based grease when they were mounted as it breaks down internally

Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: gracerace on July 18, 2017, 03:42:37 pm
7 years max. Less for trailer tires.Our tires were perfect. 10 year old fronts, 7 year old rears. Couldn't wait to get them off. It's not the blown tire that's the issue, it's what they take out with it.Been down that road too many times.
I was a service adviser, seen too many RV tires come apart.
Just my 2 cents.
CW
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Caflashbob on July 18, 2017, 07:23:12 pm
I have also seen many Rv tire failures.  Every single one I personally saw had rusted cord belts visible and every single customer with a failure used non dry air without a thought.

Obviously there were cut sidewalls and road hazard failures separately.

Just wonder how many failures were inspected and had no rusty belt failures.

Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: jimmyhenline on July 18, 2017, 08:26:50 pm
Thanks for the info think we are going to look into some new tires before we start on a long trip. From 2000 till 2010 I had a trucking co and we wore the tires out instead of them timing out lol.
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Jimmyjnr on July 18, 2017, 08:31:56 pm
My Michelin were 6/7 year old , outside had really bad weather cracking, inside dry and clean even though always filled from my shop compressor.
It was a safety issue, constantly felt the sidewall would give out
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Jet Doc on July 18, 2017, 11:50:50 pm
Can't get the pic to load, but a 6/7 year old Mich blew on steer axle.  Tread came off.  No cracks or other abnormalities prior to failure.  Tread appeared as new.  Luckily no secondary damage.  I have seen other brands age much more gracefully.  Michellin makes a top notch product, but for low mile use I went with Uniroyal RS 20's.  Half the cost and the ride/drive charistics are equal.  (IMO).  I will report back in 6/7 years on longevity of the casing.  I'm sure the tread will not be worn out.
Title: Re: Tires age
Post by: Caflashbob on July 19, 2017, 12:17:30 am
Mike, any rust inside?  Did you make sure no wet air was ever used?

Obviously any tire can fail but the current testing makes the failures extremely rare.

Double tire pressure and a heavy loading is my understanding of the testing.

Btw everyone in the tire biz uses the same test equipement.  Call Michelin.

Giant machine to over spin, over pressure and over load the test tire. 

Their engineer was really interesting to ask questions to.

So every tire made has to pass the same test. 

Some brands may be made even stronger than just this test standard.

Anyone else brand have the 700k three time retread gauaranter