tire and wheel information

[atom ant]

Originally Posted by NW Snowbirds

The wheels came from Redwood with rubber stems. Discount Tire advised me to change to steel stems to run pressures higher than 80 psi which the original Marathons ran. I am now running about 93 psi when cold.

Ah I was confused - I thought you said you were running 100, but of course not with the Marathons.

[bruce byram]

I don't know what brand wheels. They were the same aluminum wheels on all Redwood during 2012 model year. In searching for wheel replacements I could find no aftermarket aluminum wheels made in the USA that could handle 110psi so I went with chrome steel wheels.

[bruce byram]

You are correct. The original rims were rated at 90psi. One of the reasons for my post is to warn those that are upgrading to g rated tires to also upgrade the wheels

[xtasee]

Originally Posted by bruce byram

You are correct. The original rims were rated at 90psi. One of the reasons for my post is to warn those that are upgrading to g rated tires to also upgrade the wheels

All Redwoods currently in production come standard with "Aluminum wheels, G-range Tires w/NitroFill".

They also have "H Range Tires" as an option.

If you choose the 8000lb Axle upgrade, they include H tires.

Hopefully they did their homework and the wheel has the correct ratings to match...

Larry

[atom ant]

The older Redwood standard wheel was a T-03. The wheel was rated for 3,580 lbs and came with ST LRE tires.



If you ordered the G option (and sometimes even if you didn't), you got the T09 wheel rated for 3,750 lbs with LRG tires



If you had 7K axles, you were fine with the T03 wheel. You could put the G614 on there without any issues, you just couldn't overload the wheel beyond the 7K axle capacity even if the tires would handle an additional 500 lbs per axle. You could have even run them at 110 psi if you wanted to.

I don't think I would have put steel wheels on. I had more fits with steel wheels on my older rigs than the alloy - rust, bend, leak.

[gvtahoe88]

Originally Posted by bruce byram

Taking 4 to 6 trips a year and not being full timers we wanted the best RV we could get for that purpose. The 31SL model Redwood appeared to suit that need. It's 34'8" length is built with the same undercarriage as the larger models so we thought it was "overbuilt." After two years of travel and about 7,000 miles we had two tires fail (on two different trips). So we upgraded to g rated tires all around. This past summer, on a trip to Jasper Park, Canada. We had a wheel fail (developed an internal hole so the tire would not hold air). Using the spare in order to get to Calgary, Canada the tire dealer there discovered one of the other wheels had cracked all the way through the spoke. We purchased two steel wheels and continued home to San Diego.

I phoned Redwood customer service and talked to someone for advise on what to do. I felt I had just woken that person from his nap and when asking for advise he said he'd never heard anything like my story and could offer NO advise.

Purpose of this dialog is just to advise. Chinese made tires and aluminum wheels on Redwood are not the greatest and Redwood customer service is terrible.

Just changed to Good Year G's took off the Westlake Junk could not balance them. Anyone else have problems with this china junk???

[rob_fla]

I guess we got lucky, our Redwood was bought off the lot and came with the TO9 Wheels with Goodyear G614 on all 4 and a G614 on the spare.
Still considering going to the 17.5s at some point

[Titan Guy]

Porosity in cast aluminum wheels, creating air leaks, has been around since aluminum wheels were introduced. This is not unusual and occurs occasionally in most wheels.
Do an internet search for "Cast Aluminum Wheel Leak" and see what you get.
I am not a fan of any E rated ST tires. G rated tires only in applications where you have 20+% reserve capacity and would not be afraid of most China brands on 17.5's.

[mhs4771]

If you have 8K axles, you really need 17.5s to make use of the total capacity with plenty of reserve left over.

[Dave&Ginny]

In my opinion.....you can never have too much tire/wheel/suspension capacity on a RV. It's not just the weight of the RV, it's the force from the bouncing that causes the problem.

[mhs4771]

Here's a tidbit that some might not know: At one time the E rated Marathons were not rated for 3500 Lbs, thus if you had 7K axles they were de-rated to something like 6750, don't remember the exact number, but then suddenly the Marathons were rated for 3500 and 7K axles no longer had to be de-rated. Now I doubt very much if anything actually changed with them other that the numbers.

[atom ant]

Originally Posted by mhs4771

Here's a tidbit that some might not know: At one time the E rated Marathons were not rated for 3500 Lbs, thus if you had 7K axles they were de-rated to something like 6750, don't remember the exact number, but then suddenly the Marathons were rated for 3500 and 7K axles no longer had to be de-rated. Now I doubt very much if anything actually changed with them other that the numbers.

I absolutely remember that, in fact I believe the 3500 is a third generation change. Keystone was in a pickle when they re-introduced the Big Sky in 2007 and changed the larger 5ers to 7K axles. Mission didn't offer anything close, so they were forced to go to the G614 for a few months which caused the big wheel relabeling snafu through tredit to accommodate the G tire. Marathon saved the day when they came out with a new series of load range E ST tires that got them close by de-rating axles. (They did keep the G-rated tires on Big Sky, but the rest in the fleet got de-rated) Mine was one of the first out of the factory in January with 7K axle rating and not enough tire to support that weight, yet not de-rated.

Technically, my Redwood came out of the factory with axles with a higher rating than the tires could support - My 8K axles should probably have been de-rated to 7.5K because of the G614 tires, but I'm not complaining. They did de-rate the GVWR.

[Dan]

I rolled my RL across the scales and found I had 12,200 on my 5ver axles (7K) and 3,500 on the pin, my gross is 16,500 which leaves me with 800 gross, but 4,300 remaining on my 7K axles. So I figure my main concern is not to go over the weight on the 7K axles

[Dave&Ginny]

Weight is always such an issue with RVs. I was just on a forum for Newmar and apparently their tag axle Dutch Stars are having problems with the steer axle being over weight.

Axle weight, tire capacities.......always seems to be an issue somewhere.

[atom ant]

Originally Posted by Dan

I rolled my RL across the scales and found I had 12,200 on my 5ver axles (7K) and 3,500 on the pin, my gross is 16,500 which leaves me with 800 gross, but 4,300 remaining on my 7K axles. So I figure my main concern is not to go over the weight on the 7K axles

Not sure what you mean 4,300 remaining on your axles?

Mine came in at 12,900 on the axles and 4,320 on the pin. These 36RL are nose heavy dudes!

[Dan]

Originally Posted by atom ant

Not sure what you mean 4,300 remaining on your axles?

Mine came in at 12,900 on the axles and 4,320 on the pin. These 36RL are nose heavy dudes!

Sorry Brad
Old age can't add that should have been 1,800 left on the axles. My pin is a bit lighter than yours no gen or w/d

[atom ant]

Ah, I was wondering that.

Mine was full of water when I weighed. Funny I'm within a few hundred pounds of gross weight, but axles are not loaded near capacity.

[rob_fla]

Our FL is lighter on the pin, (no generator and washer / dryer is over the axles) but our axle weight is right at 6,800 lbs per axle.

[Dan]

Originally Posted by atom ant

Ah, I was wondering that.

Mine was full of water when I weighed. Funny I'm within a few hundred pounds of gross weight, but axles are not loaded near capacity.

Wish I had 8K axles