Commercial or Car Tyres fitment to your Caravan?
I read a post recently that the tyres fitted to most vans including ours are car tires and as such have a 2 Ply side wall and a tyre fitter stated it would be better to fit a Commercial Style tyre, as they have a 8 ply side wall and therefore much stronger and in most cases the blowouts are through the sidewalls. It seems to make sense, as most people are saying that the tyres are running at a high PSi and the obvious weak link is a 2 ply side wall. Has anyone fitted commercial tyres to their van? If so what do they recommend?
Comments
-
When we caravanned we had mainly Swift group caravans and they always had commercial grade 6/8 ply tyres. Would suggest that nothing lower than that quality should be used.
David
0 -
I am not sure I agree that most vans run on 2 ply tyres. I think that most vans, particularly single axle caravans run on what are broadly known as commercial tyres which do tend to have reinforced side walls. The important thing is, as DD states, to have tyres that have correct load and speed ratings. In my personal opinion buying a unbalanced no brand tyre made in China, is a false economy. This is not an opinion neccessarily shared by Caravan manufacturers.
0 -
and speed rating.
Which is probably going to be the lowest of the speed ratings.....
0 -
Tyre choice has been debated a lot on this forum, it's an important safety issue and there are always different opinions.
I made a choice to go 'up' a load range from original fitment when replacing the tyres on my large single axle van, as the original tyres were carrying ~90% of the max load. I chose Hankook Vantra LT (which stands for 'light truck') tyres. My experience has been that the van tows a lot better with them on, probably because of the stiffer sidewalls (by design and the fact that they are inflated to a higher pressure than the OEM tyres).
This boils down to personal choice at the end of the day, but I would go for the same tyres again based on my experience, they were also one of the cheapest available in the size/load rating.
Obviously, you MUST chose a tyre with a load rating equal or greater than the OEM requirements and it's worth comparing what that load rating equates to compared to your van's MTPLM, especially if it's been replated.
0 -
8 ply doesn't mean it has 8 plys it is just a rating system from the crossply days which would have had the stated number of plys. My 8 ply tyres only have two side wall plies and 5 tread plys. Commercial tyres are tougher construction than passenger tyres and often cheaper too because they are not so high a speed rating.
0 -
Whilst most catastrophic caravan tyre failures are I believe as stated associated with the sidewall, I don't think they are “instantaneous” true blowouts. I think they are the inevitable outcome of wall structure overheating from running under-inflated simply because we can pick up slow punctures and drive on unaware. The running on underinflated leads to excessive sidewall flexing and drag friction both pumping a great deal of heat into particularly the sidewall. This soon denatures the compound and most non metallic reinforcing, rendering the tyre a write-off sometime before it actually disintegrates catastrophically. A carbonised "rubber" tyre is very fragile and weak!
Here in respect to withstanding excessive heating I really don't see any difference in correctly rated tyre, whether they be a modern knitted reinforcement or various numbers of laid up plys. More generally, I much prefer a knitted toroid reinforcement than the labour intensive laying up of ply sheets with their inevitable compliance variations as adjacent layers overlap, and bigger balance issues.
IMO, by far the most important thing after buying correctly rated tyres is to use a TPMS so be aware of any loss of pressure, hopefully before thermal damage writes a tyre off, either dramatically or insidiously.0 -
This years entry for the "Plain English Award".........?
Perhaps not......
Regardless of your "knitted toroid reinforcement" whatever that is (please don't explain it to me...
).....I had a blow out on a caravan 30 years ago ( out first van) on the M6 by Preston. It was very scary....The tyre fitter who put a new tyre on for me patiently explained that I couldn't and shouldn't have put cheap car tyres on a caravan.......
Lesson learnt for the rest of my life.....
0 -
Your caravan handbook should tell you exactly what size, load and speed rating you need!
0 -
Far too important a subject to 'ask' for peoples' opinions IMHO.
As someone who has also experienced a tyre blow-out on a caravan, also on the M6, north of Preston, some 20 years ago, I sought the advice of professionals and have used tyres suitable for light commercials since. They were also fitted to my new caravan at time of purchase.
The Clubs' technical information also suggests the same.....
0 -
Never mind caravans, it is even more relevant on motorhomes as the commercial rating is a must especially those up to and above 3.5 tonnes. I had two blowouts due to car style tyres being fitted on a used van I bought late last year. I am in discussions with the dealer about this as the German police who helped me source two at midnight (yes you read that right!) were told by the fitter that 98H rating is not correct. They must be the C rating such as Semperit VanLife, Michelin Agilis Camping. I know these are right as I have one of the latter and two of the former (as of midnight fitter) are now on the vehicle as the spare was bought with van tyre. Interestingly, the tyres in Germany worked out cheaper than if bought here, partly due to the exchange rate.
0
