van tire lifespan
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chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
As i said in the other thread on road hazzard, i am hard on tires. I do make the scheduled maintainance of rotation and alignments and adjust pressure regularly. The last set of Coopers lasted me 112,500 miles. I just put Firestone Transforce 245x75Rx16 load range E on last weekend...i am looking to get 150,000 miles from them....
Just wondering, do any of you "van guys" use any of the "wheel balancing" things? Like Centrmatic?
chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
Nope....but i can have them balanced free at any firestone store as long as they have 3/32st of thread as measured at the wear indicator stripe.
I hadn't even thought about them for my van but might look into them. I don't have free balances since these are factory install tires. Presuming balancing at 12k intervals (every other rotation) that would be about 8-9 balances and I bet that would pay for most of the cost of them.
jeffman164
Seasoned Expediter
Factory tires lasted me 160,000 .
For the price of Michelins one should get 200,000 miles to justify the cost....a good set of Coopers or Toyo will get you about 125-150,000 for half the price....
Those Bridgestone (I think) have the same 80,000 mile treadwear warranty as the Michelins, and under normal conditions that's about what you can and should expect as a minimum. If you rotate them routinely and check the inflation weekly, you should get around 100,000 miles out of them, which is also what manufacturers will tell you, but they certainly aren't going to warranty them for that, but generally speaking, if you rotate and inflate, you should get an additional 20% more treadwear than the warranty states. And If you run with nitrogen or are really anal about keeping the tires properly inflated under all conditions, you can expect around 120,000 to 130,000 out of them (which is 50% more than the treadwear rating and warranty). These are real-world realistic figures of the end-of-life tread being the minimum 4/32 tread depth. These figures coincide with manufacturers who track and verify this stuff, and are consistent with the rigors and weights of Load E tires.
Weight and highway speed is a definite factor, so if you put a lot of lighter-weight deadhead miles on the tires, and mostly drive at 55 MPH versus 65 or 70 MPH, and you van is lighter than most to begin with, you will get more miles out of the tires (perhaps as much as 10% or 15% more).
Those who somehow manage to get significantly more mileage out of their tires (more than 150,000) down no farther down than the legal minimum tread depth, should be listened to with a "if it sounds too good to be true" grain of salt. They should be contacting the tire manufacturers with their information. Not only will tire manufacturers pay for ground-breaking information on how someone is able to get 100% or more tread wear than the tires physically have built into them, they will almost certainly pay handsomely for the endorsement.
I have a friend who replaced his old Michelin LTX A/S tires after 195,000 miles. The odometer reading on the old tire invoice when he bought those tires, and the odometer reading on the new invoice when he replaced the tires, showed 119,000 miles and change. Yet he still claims 195,000 miles. He's standing tuff. Says the odometer reading on the old invoice must be wrong. All this salt... no wonder I have high blood pressure.
"For the price of Michelins one should get 200,000 miles to justify the cost....a good set of Coopers or Toyo will get you about 125-150,000 for half the price...."
That's certainly true if you consider tires a consumable, a commodity bought and consumed, and not an asset to be managed to get the most of your investment. I view tires (and batteries) as an asset, same as the van. So, you manage your tires the same as any asset by looking at ways to maximize your investment. To maximize the investment in tires you have to look at characteristics of tires dealing with more than just treadwear, things like safety related items such as rated stopping distance, handling in various conditions, tread design for dispersing water, sidewall strength.
You have to look at these factors not only for tires when they are new, but the same characteristics when the treadwear is 50% or more, over the life of the tire. For example, at 6/32 tread depth, what's the stopping distance rating for a Michelin versus some other brand? Sidewall strength plays a major role, rolling resistance somewhat less, in the stopping distance at low tread depths. But it's important.
And then there's the great big one - rolling resistance, which has a direct impact on fuel economy and thus the overall price of the tire, the overall return on investment. Rolling Resistance is the force required to keep a tire moving at a uniform speed. The lower the rolling resistance, the less energy needed to keep a tire moving. Tires are responsible for 20% of the fuel energy a vehicle consumes. That's for cars, light trucks and soccer mommy vans. For "medium duty" vans and Sprinter like the kind for expediting (Load E tires) it's 25%. For big trucks it's 30%. That's significant, and not all tires are created equal when it comes to the energy factor, with the differences in rolling resistance being as much as 50% for a given vehicle's type of tires. With all tires, rolling resistance increases with lower tire pressure, since lower tire pressure increases tire deformation, which increases heat and therefor a loss of energy, hence more rolling resistance and fuel consumption. It also increases with a decrease in temperature, with tires having a 6% decrease in rolling resistance at 90 degrees than they do at 40 degrees, but that's not something we really have control of, yet it's good to know. Also, wider tires, believe it or don't, have less rolling resistance than skinny tires, depending on tread design, of course. Tire design, like stronger sidewalls, tire shape and tread design and tread compounds, an extra steel belt, and higher tire pressures reduce rolling resistance. Michelin Load E tires are all designed with the EnergySaver (or whatever marketing name they use) properties employed.
The April, 2008 issue of "Us Carowners" which is the translated English name from Swedish, did some extensive tire tests which confirmed the ratings as stated by manufacturers, and confirmed what those crazy anal Hypermilers had already determined. Michelin tires have by far the lowest rolling resistance of any consumer brand of tire in the world, with Bridgestones coming in second. Again, not all tires, even within the same brand, will yield the same rolling resistance on a given vehicle, but for Load E comparable tires (without getting into all the different possible tires, assume essentially the higher priced Load E tires within a brand), here's the ratings for a few tires:
Michelin - 0.0855
Bridgestone - 0.242
Firestone - 0.659
Continental - 1.222
Dunlop - 1.241
Goodyear - 1.296
Toyo - 1.298
Other than Bridgestone and Firestone, no other tires were under 1.00.
So, with Michelins, you can reduce rolling resistance by 30%, which translates to about a 4% MPG savings (or .8 MPG at 20 MPG). 80,000 miles at 20 MPG costs 4,000 gallons of fuel. At $2.50 per gallon, that's $10,000. And 4% of that is $400, which, if treated as an investment instead of a consumable, makes those high dollar Michelins cheaper to operate than lower costing tires.
So if you look at tires as a consumable, at treadwear only, yeah, Michelins are pretty expensive throwaways. But if you factor in the other things, they become very cost effective, if not outright cheaper.
Weight and highway speed is a definite factor, so if you put a lot of lighter-weight deadhead miles on the tires, and mostly drive at 55 MPH versus 65 or 70 MPH, and you van is lighter than most to begin with, you will get more miles out of the tires (perhaps as much as 10% or 15% more).
Those who somehow manage to get significantly more mileage out of their tires (more than 150,000) down no farther down than the legal minimum tread depth, should be listened to with a "if it sounds too good to be true" grain of salt. They should be contacting the tire manufacturers with their information. Not only will tire manufacturers pay for ground-breaking information on how someone is able to get 100% or more tread wear than the tires physically have built into them, they will almost certainly pay handsomely for the endorsement.
I have a friend who replaced his old Michelin LTX A/S tires after 195,000 miles. The odometer reading on the old tire invoice when he bought those tires, and the odometer reading on the new invoice when he replaced the tires, showed 119,000 miles and change. Yet he still claims 195,000 miles. He's standing tuff. Says the odometer reading on the old invoice must be wrong. All this salt... no wonder I have high blood pressure.
"For the price of Michelins one should get 200,000 miles to justify the cost....a good set of Coopers or Toyo will get you about 125-150,000 for half the price...."
That's certainly true if you consider tires a consumable, a commodity bought and consumed, and not an asset to be managed to get the most of your investment. I view tires (and batteries) as an asset, same as the van. So, you manage your tires the same as any asset by looking at ways to maximize your investment. To maximize the investment in tires you have to look at characteristics of tires dealing with more than just treadwear, things like safety related items such as rated stopping distance, handling in various conditions, tread design for dispersing water, sidewall strength.
You have to look at these factors not only for tires when they are new, but the same characteristics when the treadwear is 50% or more, over the life of the tire. For example, at 6/32 tread depth, what's the stopping distance rating for a Michelin versus some other brand? Sidewall strength plays a major role, rolling resistance somewhat less, in the stopping distance at low tread depths. But it's important.
And then there's the great big one - rolling resistance, which has a direct impact on fuel economy and thus the overall price of the tire, the overall return on investment. Rolling Resistance is the force required to keep a tire moving at a uniform speed. The lower the rolling resistance, the less energy needed to keep a tire moving. Tires are responsible for 20% of the fuel energy a vehicle consumes. That's for cars, light trucks and soccer mommy vans. For "medium duty" vans and Sprinter like the kind for expediting (Load E tires) it's 25%. For big trucks it's 30%. That's significant, and not all tires are created equal when it comes to the energy factor, with the differences in rolling resistance being as much as 50% for a given vehicle's type of tires. With all tires, rolling resistance increases with lower tire pressure, since lower tire pressure increases tire deformation, which increases heat and therefor a loss of energy, hence more rolling resistance and fuel consumption. It also increases with a decrease in temperature, with tires having a 6% decrease in rolling resistance at 90 degrees than they do at 40 degrees, but that's not something we really have control of, yet it's good to know. Also, wider tires, believe it or don't, have less rolling resistance than skinny tires, depending on tread design, of course. Tire design, like stronger sidewalls, tire shape and tread design and tread compounds, an extra steel belt, and higher tire pressures reduce rolling resistance. Michelin Load E tires are all designed with the EnergySaver (or whatever marketing name they use) properties employed.
The April, 2008 issue of "Us Carowners" which is the translated English name from Swedish, did some extensive tire tests which confirmed the ratings as stated by manufacturers, and confirmed what those crazy anal Hypermilers had already determined. Michelin tires have by far the lowest rolling resistance of any consumer brand of tire in the world, with Bridgestones coming in second. Again, not all tires, even within the same brand, will yield the same rolling resistance on a given vehicle, but for Load E comparable tires (without getting into all the different possible tires, assume essentially the higher priced Load E tires within a brand), here's the ratings for a few tires:
Michelin - 0.0855
Bridgestone - 0.242
Firestone - 0.659
Continental - 1.222
Dunlop - 1.241
Goodyear - 1.296
Toyo - 1.298
Other than Bridgestone and Firestone, no other tires were under 1.00.
So, with Michelins, you can reduce rolling resistance by 30%, which translates to about a 4% MPG savings (or .8 MPG at 20 MPG). 80,000 miles at 20 MPG costs 4,000 gallons of fuel. At $2.50 per gallon, that's $10,000. And 4% of that is $400, which, if treated as an investment instead of a consumable, makes those high dollar Michelins cheaper to operate than lower costing tires.
So if you look at tires as a consumable, at treadwear only, yeah, Michelins are pretty expensive throwaways. But if you factor in the other things, they become very cost effective, if not outright cheaper.
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All very good points to consider....
RLENT
Veteran Expediter
I got 123K miles out of the original Michelin LTX A/S that came on the Sprinter from the factory. They were replaced with LTX M/S and I now have around 95K miles on them, with considerable tread left. I would expect to get at least what I got out of the A/S's .... likely more. I have rotated them around every 18K miles.
So basically depending on how one works...about 1 set of tires a year?
I'd say so, a year to a year and a half, but like you said it depends on how one works and how many times they deadhead home to Ohio from Houston. I budget one set a year, at least for CPM calculations, but it's a little more than a year between sets. My last set was right at 18 months. But I don't do a lot of deadheading. The set before last, though, was 13 months. That was when we were all a lot busier, tho.
I run Firestone Transforce. Came from the factory with them and I'm have stuck with them. I am in a 2 tire replacement cycle. I buy 2 new tires for the rear and rotate the rear to the front and replace the spare with a former front tire.
I buy my tires from a local independent tire shop that offers free rotation. But the only time I rotate my tires is when I buy 2 new ones. I am due for 2 new rear tires before winter, but I may replace all 4. I currently have 127,000 miles on the rear set. Even wear and a fair amount of tread. Front set has 168,000 miles, even wear with about 6/32".
I run 70 psi front and 80 psi rear.
I buy my tires from a local independent tire shop that offers free rotation. But the only time I rotate my tires is when I buy 2 new ones. I am due for 2 new rear tires before winter, but I may replace all 4. I currently have 127,000 miles on the rear set. Even wear and a fair amount of tread. Front set has 168,000 miles, even wear with about 6/32".
I run 70 psi front and 80 psi rear.
guido4475
Not a Member
I'm running all 4 at 80 psi. The door sticker suggests 60 in the front, 80 in the rear, but it felt too squrmy that way.Did the 2 axle alignment at the time of purchase.I do have a problem with wandering on the highway.What ryder replaced under their warranty on the front end:
all shocks
all ball joints
both tie rods
center link
power steering pump
Wheel bearings, front.
The only thing I think it might be is the steering gearbox may have excessive play in it.So that may get replaced.Other than that, tire wear is beautiful, even, and they still appear new even at 20,000 miles.I also want to replace the front stabilizer bar bushings with polyurethane type, and add a rear stabilizer bar to the van.
all shocks
all ball joints
both tie rods
center link
power steering pump
Wheel bearings, front.
The only thing I think it might be is the steering gearbox may have excessive play in it.So that may get replaced.Other than that, tire wear is beautiful, even, and they still appear new even at 20,000 miles.I also want to replace the front stabilizer bar bushings with polyurethane type, and add a rear stabilizer bar to the van.
Excessive gearbox play in a CV should be almost extinct these days? One of the testing points for my CDL 25 tears ago was checking for free play in the wheel....I never hear of it now..
How far can you turn the wheel before the tires actually turn? any lag time?
I've had one high mileage car used for taxi where the gear in the box got burrs and was ripping out the seal and I spilled out all the fluid...went to wreckers and got new gearbox the guy said what? He took the gear assembly out and brushed up the gogs and removed any burrs put it back in and never a problem...all for 30 bucks! Something a dealer would tell you is impossible to do...
How far can you turn the wheel before the tires actually turn? any lag time?
I've had one high mileage car used for taxi where the gear in the box got burrs and was ripping out the seal and I spilled out all the fluid...went to wreckers and got new gearbox the guy said what? He took the gear assembly out and brushed up the gogs and removed any burrs put it back in and never a problem...all for 30 bucks! Something a dealer would tell you is impossible to do...
guido4475
Not a Member
There is a junkyard by my house that I have been dealing with for 20 years and he has a e-350 van with a new steering gearbox on it for 60.00 So I am thinking about getting it.My 10-wheeler Had excessive play at 800,000 miles, but the van only has 200,000 on it.The alignment has been checked and re-checked a week later and is perfect.
Trailblazer
Expert Expediter
For the last 3 sets of tires I'm running Dakota HT's from Pep Boys. This tire has a much softer ride than the Goodyears. Tire Pressures are 60 lbs front and 80 lbs rear. Rotation every 15,000.
Mileage Miles
Goodyear Wrangler HT lasted 214257 (5 Tire Rotation)
Goodyear Wrangler HT lasted 146732
Dakota HT lasted 177856
Dakota HT lasted 171646
Dakota HT 70000 and still look new
Jim
Mileage Miles
Goodyear Wrangler HT lasted 214257 (5 Tire Rotation)
Goodyear Wrangler HT lasted 146732
Dakota HT lasted 177856
Dakota HT lasted 171646
Dakota HT 70000 and still look new
Jim
