Tire Safety

This is one area we all should take seriously and make it part of our trip checks along with checking the wheel nuts (lug nuts). On my trailer they are 100 ft. lbs., my truck is 140 ft. lbs. The picture at the left is the rear drivers side trailer tire that blew out on a Friday night on our way to a state park. All I saw in the mirrors was smoke bellowing out of the RV, I've seen RV's burn to the ground from this or damage the trailer skirt or wheel well. Mine was a Goodyear tire that came with the RV, you can see where the tread had separated.

Most people don't weigh their rigs so they have no idea of the weight on the steers, drives or trailer axles. The next time your filling up with fuel, spend a few bucks and take a few minutes to drive your rig across the scales at the truck stop, you may be surprised. Most folks just keep their tires inflated to the max pressure on all their tires and feel that's all they need to do, that's where knowing your rigs weight comes in. For example your tow vehicle axle weights are a lot less that when your big ole shiny rig's behind you, so that tires inflation pressure should correspond to the manufacturers recommendation for a given weight. A easy way to double check this is to chalk your tire tread and drive forward and see how much chalk was transferred to the ground, you may need to use a piece of plywood to drive on to get a good reading. What you should see is the complete tread pattern, if you only get the center of the tread your tires are over inflated, if you're getting the outer edges only, they're under inflated. Get a good tire pressure gauge and keep it in your truck, make sure it goes high enough for your truck tires max pressure. I've included a few links for manufacturers tire inflation charts, they're easy to understand, find your tires size, find the weight on the tire, go up and that's your inflation pressure.

http://www.goodyear.com/rv/pdf/rv_inflation.pdf
http://www.michelintruck.com/michelintruck/tires-retreads/load-inflation-tables.jsp
http://marktg.toyotires.com/file/loadinflationtable.pdf

There are also aftermarket tire pressure monitors that can help you monitor the state of you tires and you immediately know when you have a low tire or a blowout.
"Happy Trails"