Cracked Up
Yesterday, Lisa got out the torque wrench and tighten the lug nuts on the spare tire for the Rolling Stone and then lowered it off the jack. Some of you may remember that we had a tire more or less shred itself (I think we were lucky to get home) and that we had put the spare on. We did not lower the jack, planning to replace the tire soon (we did not). In light of my minivan being in the shop in Sparks, we figured we might be able to use the RV to take us back and forth; however, it looks like the tires have other ideas.
The spare was clearly low on air. Lisa measured it at 50 psi when the rated pressure should be 80 psi. So we drove the RV (not exceeding 25 mph) over to Pilot. There we found that their air pump cannot fill tires above 70 psi, and after $2 and five minutes, it wouldn't even get to 60 psi. We gingerly made our way home, and Lisa looked more closely at all of the tires.
There's cracking on the spare tire's sidewall.
The other three tires also show cracking.
These tires are sufficiently old, and the sun sufficiently hard on tires even when you don't drive the vehicle this often, that Lisa says we should not drive the RV very far, and when we do we should do so at low speeds. This means we'll need to replace five tires (including the spare). I'm leaning toward trying to buy tires from TireRack.com (which has a warehouse at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Park, with a discount for picking up from their will-call), and then have the tires mounted by a shop locally. There are several tire shops around us here, so we just need to ask them if they'll mount tires that we bring them and how much they would charge.
Our first choice would have been Hanneman Service, but their tire-mounting machine is broken and they do not intend to fix it as it's not part of their core service these days. I'd rather give the money to people with whom I've worked before and who I trust, but we'll see if one of the other shops (one of which is within walking distance) will do the work.
So I reckon we're looking at around another $1000 in vehicle work. Tires are expensive, and getting more expensive. On the bright side, TireRack.com does show you the country of origin of each kind of tire, although you can't filter by it, so you have to look at each tire's entry. It's better than just taking pot-luck at the tire store.
The spare was clearly low on air. Lisa measured it at 50 psi when the rated pressure should be 80 psi. So we drove the RV (not exceeding 25 mph) over to Pilot. There we found that their air pump cannot fill tires above 70 psi, and after $2 and five minutes, it wouldn't even get to 60 psi. We gingerly made our way home, and Lisa looked more closely at all of the tires.
There's cracking on the spare tire's sidewall.
The other three tires also show cracking.
These tires are sufficiently old, and the sun sufficiently hard on tires even when you don't drive the vehicle this often, that Lisa says we should not drive the RV very far, and when we do we should do so at low speeds. This means we'll need to replace five tires (including the spare). I'm leaning toward trying to buy tires from TireRack.com (which has a warehouse at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Park, with a discount for picking up from their will-call), and then have the tires mounted by a shop locally. There are several tire shops around us here, so we just need to ask them if they'll mount tires that we bring them and how much they would charge.
Our first choice would have been Hanneman Service, but their tire-mounting machine is broken and they do not intend to fix it as it's not part of their core service these days. I'd rather give the money to people with whom I've worked before and who I trust, but we'll see if one of the other shops (one of which is within walking distance) will do the work.
So I reckon we're looking at around another $1000 in vehicle work. Tires are expensive, and getting more expensive. On the bright side, TireRack.com does show you the country of origin of each kind of tire, although you can't filter by it, so you have to look at each tire's entry. It's better than just taking pot-luck at the tire store.