To try and avoid having a blow out and holding you all up for hours on the A1 in August I'm changing the tyres on the wee bothy that is our caravan. They're 7 years old this year, plenty of tread and look OK, but the wisdom is to change them after 6 years, apparently age isn't good for them.
They're not a popular size/load/speed rating (195/70R14 91H) but I can get a pair of Kumho KH17 for just over £100 fitted. An alternative is Pirelli Chrono 91T at about the same price from the quick fitters.
Of course I won't be doing 130mph or 118 either, but given that the load rating is for the rated speed, in theory there should be a bigger margin on the 91H.
Pirelli, or the higher speed-rated Kumho?
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p.s. - Fast Fasten are actually 20% more expensive than I thought - they want £11 a wheel for valve, balance, and tyre disposal. Are they owned by Ryanair?
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You must be talking about Kwik Fit. I know I often tried to get quotes from there only to notice at basket stage that it dosn't including fitting. I tend to use Event but go to their fitting centre rather than the get them to come out. They are very honest too.
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Kumho are a quality brand, despite the cheapo-sounding name. Standard fit on some new models these days.
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i like khumo but would be appalled to pay £50 each fitted for what is basically an austin ambassador size
shop around to get this price down i would suggest
ps i dont see khumo as quality i see them as cheap new
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>> Kumho are a quality brand, despite the cheapo-sounding name. Standard fit on some new models these days.
>>
I am very pleased with Kumhos on my Mondeo. I assume they would be equally good on your caravan.
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Nothing wrong with Kumhos as far as I can gather.
They are regarded as a good mid-range tyre for the CC3.
Wise move to replace the others, by the way.
Whereabouts are you stopping this year?
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If there's no sign of perishing or other degrading of the tyres why change them, so long as you have a good spare and jack.
Just out of interest do any caravanners cover their tyres to prolong the life of them.
Edit, arn't Khumo made in Korea and China anyway.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Sat 17 Jul 10 at 20:37
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>>
>> Just out of interest do any caravanners cover their tyres to prolong the life of
>> them.
>>
The wheels come off and live under the bench in the garage when we stop caravanning for the season.
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>> The wheels come off and live under the bench in the garage when we stop
>> caravanning for the season.
>>
Makes sense, don't suppose it does any harm to let the springs rest either H.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Sat 17 Jul 10 at 20:51
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>> >> The wheels come off and live under the bench in the garage when we
>> stop
>> >> caravanning for the season.
Why have a season? If I had a van it wuld be ready to go on any weekend of the year if the weather was half decent.
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Some sites shut for periods of winter but other do remain open, yes get it used you paid for it use it stick the heater on and get you wollies out & electric blanket.....or just dump it and go abroad for winter....
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>> Why have a season?
We have done winter caravanning for years, frozen water, snow on the awning etc. but as we get older and more decrepit, we just fancy it less.
>> If I had a van it wuld be ready to go
>> on any weekend of the year if the weather was half decent.
>>
Of course it would ...
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>> Of course it would ...
well why not? how much does it take to keep it ready in a state to move, or load it up ready to go? What is the point of having the freedom to go and vacation where you like when you like if you cant do it.
Uk weather is pretty unique. At fairly short notice, we can have very unseasonal weather, meaning mild when it should be horrible. Why not be availble to use it?
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 18 Jul 10 at 15:53
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>> Uk weather is pretty unique. At fairly short notice, we can have very unseasonal weather,
>> meaning mild when it should be horrible. Why not be availble to use it?
>>
Like this...
tinyurl.com/2wfevnd
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Nice Eriba, (the airstream and the eriba are the only vans i would consider), but no - thats not caravaning weather.
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>> Nice Eriba, (the airstream and the eriba are the only vans i would consider), but
>> no - thats not caravaning weather.
Well spotted. This is the view in the opposite direction - quite a pleasant spot.
tinyurl.com/33bad4m
We had some quite good walks on that trip, and we went on from there (Houghton, Cambs) to the coast at Lowestoft, which was also enjoyable once the wind dropped below 50mph!
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>>If there's no sign of perishing or other degrading of the tyres why change them, so long as you have a good spare and jack.
I suspect they're fine, but £100 isn't a lot in the great scheme and I'm following the 'official' advice. To be honest, I'd agree with you on a car, but there aren't so many clues for the driver when a caravan tyre is deflating, and a puncture on a caravan can have consequences if it affects stability. Plus which, by definition you're on holiday when it happens and it's something you can do without.
The existing original ones are Matadors, a budget brand owned by Continental and made in Eastern Europe somewhere. They have always had some disturbing looking depressions in the sidewalls, but have been no trouble at all. I have a theory though that most caravan/trailer tyre problems are related to under-pressure, so I check them literally every tow.
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>>Whereabouts are you stopping this year?
The summer tour is Northumberland, a couple of miles from Craster; Hawes (can't stop visiting the Dales); and Herefordshire. Only a few weeks to go :-)
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...tour is Northumberland, a couple of miles from Craster; Hawes (can't stop visiting the Dales); and Herefordshire...
A good trot, and you certainly don't want a puncture wrecking that itinerary.
I reckon your caravan problems theory is spot on, tyres cause more bother than anything else.
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I replaced a set of 4 cheapo Chinese tyres on my S80 with 4 Khumos, the Khumos were several hundred times better - whilst also much cheaper than the big name brands. I would happily buy them again.
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Kumho are Korean aren't they? They were fitted to my new Kia. I think we'd all agree that Korean is a cut above Chinese (in the automotive world)?!
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>> Kumho are Korean aren't they?
3 factories in Korea i believe and 3 or 4 in China.
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Save some money don't get them ballanced it's a caravan it has no steering wheel & the wheel bearings will be fine with the mileage it does.!!
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Balancing costs, what, £4 per wheel and the originals have lasted 7 years, what kind of saving is that?
EDIT: BTW I wouldn't have any concerns over Kumho though would er towards Pirelli out of choice. The speed rating is not an issue.
Last edited by: Cheddar on Sun 18 Jul 10 at 09:21
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...it's a caravan it has no steering wheel...
The reason to have the tyres balanced is that one or both of the new ones may not be perfectly circular/in balance.
Or one of the wheels may have had a clout over the years.
Non-steering wheels are not so important, but they can still produce vibration.
Were I a fitter, I would not be happy fitting any tyre that had not been balanced.
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>> Were I a fitter, I would not be happy fitting any tyre that had not
>> been balanced.
>>
>>
>>
Spot on Iffi. I and many others suspect that unbalanced caravan wheels encourage slackening of the wheel nuts.
Also, the damn things are flimsy enough without encouraging unnecessary vibration through the structure.
Balanced wheels for me definitely.
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Were I a fitter, I would not be happy fitting any tyre that had not been balanced.
Of course not old chap as if you was a fitter for every wheel balance you get 75p a wheel bonus, £2.00 a tracking £3.00 for a pair of shockers.
Un balanced wheels don't slacken the wheel nuts thats rubbish it's the numpty who took it off and can't tighten the nuts back up, plenty of others stay on ok.
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If manatee would excuse a little drift...
Hawk,
I saw a landscape gardening contractor doing a bungalow in Patrick Brompton a couple of weeks ago.
Mindful of one of your recent threads, I asked him if he was you.
He wasn't, although bearing in mind he had just had a stranger ask a damn fool question, he was very affable and we had a chat for a few minutes.
He runs his business with his son, and they have just bought a 10-reg Nissan three ton curtainside wagon for nearly £30k.
As well as the gardening, he does other bits of fetching and carrying in the winter - hence the need for the multi-purpose wagon.
Can't recall where he was based, but somewhere in the Bedale/Leyburn area, and he was saying he does a few churchyards.
Do you know him?
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absolute madness not to balance any wheel
and of course it is quite sensible to change these tyres after 5+ years ,just because the tread and sidewalls look good to the naked eye they may well be deteriorating in the carcass waiting to blow big time
non usage is worse than usage with used tyres
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When you buy a trailer it comes with brand new UN-BALANCED wheels on and they have no problems what so ever & carry heavier loads than a caravan.
As for your car yes balance them you have to sit there at 90mph with a wobbling steering wheel or a rear end vibration through the car, but the caravan that does 60mph is it and does avearge of 1k a year if your lucky no need to bother.
Have you still got a tyre shop bellboy after some buisness?
Last edited by: Bigtee on Sun 18 Jul 10 at 10:34
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did they put the red spot on the tyre opposite the tyre valve ?
lots of modern tyres dont need any weights due to quality build in the factory combined with a good true straight rim
cant believe people wouldnt want a tyre on a vehicle not balanced,fair enough if only going to the tip but going on holiday with half a house behind you and an unbalanced rim?
i really cant believe anyone would be that dumb
some homework for you to read Bigtea
www.kwik-fit.com/wheel-balancing.asp
Last edited by: Bellboy on Sun 18 Jul 10 at 10:39
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The first sign that your wheels may be out of balance is when your steering wheel starts to wobble above a certain speed.
Yes i know as i said but a caravan does not have a steering wheel & i also said have them done to your car.
Had a transit twin wheeler years back the front wheels were always too big for the spacer they had at kwik-fit so they never got balanced it was fine till about 60mph.
Yes the red spot is aligned up to the valve.
some homework for you to read Bigtea...............It's Bigtee..................
Last edited by: Bigtee on Sun 18 Jul 10 at 10:52
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I dunno about tea, but I reckon he had the angry flakes for breakfast. :)
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At work old mate & got feet up with a cup of tea.!! ha ha.
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...At work old mate & got feet up with a cup of tea.!! ha ha....
Mug of Nescafe for me in the caravan.
Powdered milk because I forgot to bring any fresh - not too bad if you make it up with cold water first.
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>> but the caravan that does 60mph ..................... no need to bother.
>>
I had two front tyres fitted to the FocuST last week, the fitter static balanced them (averaging the required weight rim to rim so as to only apply one weight) I realised what he was doing though trusted his judgement, as soon as I hit 60mph it started shaking, had to get them rebalanced properly, all is well now.
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>> If manatee would excuse a little drift...
>>
>> Hawk,
>>
>> I saw a landscape gardening contractor doing a bungalow in Patrick Brompton a couple of
>> weeks ago.
>>
>> Mindful of one of your recent threads, I asked him if he was you.
>>
£30K worth of curtainsider. It deffo wasn't me! Son works in a local garden centre; he's stopped helping me except when I go on hols. I'm to be found near a red unsigned Citroen C8 with prat plates and a modest trailer; don't do landscaping. Just a pusher of lawnmowers and a tidyer of beds with some hedgecutting thrown in. Very near the bottom of the gardening food chain. I think I know who you're describing though.
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...Just a pusher of lawnmowers and a tidyer of beds with some hedgecutting thrown in...
Pretty much what he was doing at this bungalow - grafting away with a petrol strimmer.
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Thank you all for your comments and advice.
There's no evidence that the existing tyres have been balanced, but the new ones will be - when you've only two wheels on your wagon. belt, braces and anything else that helps make sense to me.
Anybody who's had a caravan will also be aware of the amazing ability of internal fittings and contents to unscrew themselves, move around, open, come adrift etc. and of course as you never travel in it you've no idea how much vibration there is or isn't from unbalanced wheels.
There are lots of things I don't fuss about, but this isn't one of them. I use a torque wrench on the bolts, and check the pressures every trip.
My simple logic says a preventive approach is the only way with trailers. There's a good chance with the car that you'll notice an under-pressure tyre or a failing wheel bearing; with trailers, the first indication of bearing failure might be when it catches fire or the wheel overtakes you!
Last edited by: Manatee on Sun 18 Jul 10 at 11:55
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"If there's no sign of perishing or other degrading of the tyres why change them, so long as you have a good spare and jack."
Hate to disagree with you GB, but advice is that although tread etc may look good (you'd have a job wearing out the tread on a caravan tyre!), sidewalls may well have cracks etc which could go at any time in tyres of that age and last thing a caravanner (or other road user) wants is a blowout. As an example, I had a BX which did over 100k on a set of rear tyres - still loads of tread. One day noticed a strange vibration on car - stopped and inspected wheels, tyres etc - no sign of a problem. Called at my local friendly independent and told him - he jacked it up and there, on inside of rear tyre was a huge blister which was almost catching on suspension arm. "What's caused that I asked" - "old tyre" he said, "bet you've had them on since car was new" - it was 7 years old.
What price a new tyre against a blowout on van on motorway?
Other point is that on a caravan it is illegal not to have REINFORCED tyres. ( van, as in commercial van, tyres.
If in any doubt - get new tyres
Phil
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he jacked it up and there, on inside of
>> rear tyre was a huge blister which was almost catching on suspension arm.
Pip i did mean to thoroughly inspect the tyres and if any sign if disintegration then scrap them, though point taken.
Your own case does however highlight the thorny question of tyre rotation, especially given the incredible mileages that rear tyres on FWD cars can reach.
Interesting point too about reinforced (van) tyres being legal requirement on caravans though i didn't know that.
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As mostly covered above..
Excellent idea to change the caravan tyres now, either tyre will be fine for this use, do have them balanced.... sorted.
On a slightly related note we were returning from a weekend away along the M6 yesterday. Saw an older type horse lorry teetering at an angle on the hard shoulder with a shredded offside rear tyre. It was on a section of raised motorway, traffic was heavy so no chance to unload the horse.
I commented to the good lady it was a typical tyre problem of a low use vehice similar to caravans and how it had *really* complicated their day.
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...t was a typical tyre problem of a low use vehice...
I don't doubt this old horsebox was a low use vehicle.
We used to service three boxes belonging to one of the busier trainers at the time.
Each box was in for a small service every few weeks during the National Hunt season.
Sending runners to tracks around the country soon put on the miles.
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Ifi... been a National Hunt supporter for 30+yrs so well know the expensive mile munching vehicles they have from seeing them at the races.
This was the typical low budget 60s/70s lorry with a wooden horsebox back... just the sort of thing that gets pulled out to do a 20 mile gymkana run every couple of months.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Mon 19 Jul 10 at 09:22
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I'm going back to the late 70s, so the boxes we dealt with were not as luxurious as the ones today, but they were, er, workhorses.
We used to call them Lambourn boxes, which might have been the name of the coachbuilder, where they were built, or maybe it was just a type of horsebox.
Not so many motorways in those days.
Driving the box was seen as something of an art, getting the animal there reasonably quickly but also in the right frame of mind to race.
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>>>Driving the box was seen as something of an art, getting the animal there reasonably quickly but also in the right frame of mind to race.
Yes horse trailer towing or box driving is a big responsibility... one the leisure horse users often don't properly appreciate until something goes wrong.
Before I could drive (70s) we'd be taken to shows sometimes by a farmer in a cattle truck with no proper horse partitions. He thought driving so fast the horses spent all their time trying to stand was the answer... I was always amazed they'd get back in the thing to go home after the event!
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I always feel sorry for the horse... its not exactly a comfortable environment, is it! It must have been even worse in the old days when they went by train, the 4 wheel horse boxes were attached to express trains... now that would have been rough at speed!
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And standing round in a paddock for weeks on end giving the tyres 'flatspots'
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>>on a caravan it is illegal not to have REINFORCED tyres.
What is meant by a reinforced tyre and how can one be identified from the info on the side wall? One thing to remember (obviously) with a single axle caravan is that the weight is carried by just two tyres, so the load rating of the tyres should be more than half of the MTPLM. BTW, I think I have the same Eriba caravan as Manatee.
Seems to me that budget tyres are fine for a caravan, as long as the load rating is correct. Premium tyres would probably out-perform them in terms of grip, noise, life expectancy etc, none of which matter much on a caravan.
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DF - it's a 540.
I can't find any requirement for reinforced tyres either. Though as it happens I have ended up ordering some extra load/reinforced tyres (Bridgestone SF226 195/70 R14 95S) anyway.
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Oh, not quite the same then - mine's a 410. Same size tyres IIRC. 1200kg rated axle, so I just made sure the tyres were rated to more than 600kg. I changed the original Matadors at 6 years old, as a precaution, much as you are doing.
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Caravan - Are Kumho tyres good? - Manatee
