Rear Drive Tires

[nconn]

Hey All,

I am in the market for 4 new rear drive tires. Mine are very dry rotted.

I was wondering if anyone has experience with tires from Vietnam? They are about $300 bucks a piece with installation. Which is about half the cost of US brands.

A few options I found from a local guy are
1. SPEEDMAX SS622
2. DRC LS642
3. AUFINE Premium Line A

All the tires are size 295/75r22.5 and about $300 a piece

Are these a good option or do I risk blowouts/failures with tires from Vietnam?

Also, any opinions on all position vs lug tires for the rear?

 

[BarnYardCamp]

Take a look at simpletire.com to at least compare prices.

 

[jenandjon]

I have bought hundreds of drive tires and I have never heard of any of those. We have 5 semi-trucks on the farm that take that size. We currently have Yokohama on a couple trucks. Firestone on a few and Michlin on one. Personally, I would not buy any of the 3 your tire guy is suggesting. But I have no idea how many miles you are looking at driving a year. Are you going to drive 3,000 miles a year or 30,000? If you are only going a couple thousand miles a year, then shure whatever cheap tire you find should be OK.

My experience is any of the mainstream tires will treat you well. Toyo, Yokohama, Continental, BFG, Firestone etc. You don't need Michlin. I hate good Year. My opinion.

My bus has brand new firestone all the way around it, but I don't pick it up until Monday so I can't really comment on that yet.

As for tread design. What do you want to do with your bus? Will you be pavement only or are you going out in the desert to boondock? If you are down south and never plan on leaving pavement, then an all-position tire will be just fine. If you are anywhere with dirt or snow, I suggest on open shoulder type tire because all position tires will get you stuck on wet grass.

 

[cadillackid]

Uniroyal (division of michelin) its what on my DEV bus,, they have been on 7 years now and have held up very well..



with any drive tire one of the decisions needs to be tread.. if you want to be able to do mild offroading or navigate snow you'll want a more aggressive tread (sold as a dedicated drive tire typically).. however if you plan to push only pavement you will find an all-position tire to run smoother and quieter.. dedicated drive tires will "sing" more as they age as typical of most more-agressive tread tires.. the noise in my DEV bus and Superior which had "gnarly" drive tires is definitely noticeable over the all-positions that IO have on my red bus.. my DEV bus gets driven in Ohio winters (as I decorate it for christmas and cruise it around) so I keep the aggressive tire.. and it makes a difference in snow for sure..


just something to think about while tire shopping..


so I have 3 brands of tires on the busses


1. DEV bus - 11R22.5's - Uniroyal. Zero issues in 7 years and 50k miles
2. RedByrd - IronMan - 225/70R19.5 - constant balance and vibration issues.. run-out(3 years 15k miles)
3. Superior - 11R22.5 rear 9R20 fronts - Double-Coin. Zero issues in 4 and a half years and 5k miles. one front rim is slightly bent so little vibration there.



inflation is key. inflating for your load range and staying in range of the placard in your bus.. dont just go up to 100 or 105 PSI because the tire shop puts them there.. over inflation you'll wear down the center tread prematurely.. under inflation you can overheat the tire and wear the edges rather quickly as well..



if a tire brand doesnt have an inflation load chart you may want to think twice about buying it..

 

[Dbacks2k4]

Kinda depends on your usage plans. I've got a bunch of cheap chinese crap on one of my party buses - but it only does 3000 miles a year and rarely goes further than about 30 miles out from my home base so I'm not as worried about it. The drives are recaps, I don't know much about who actually did the recap. Steers are virgin all-position I believe They've actually held up well for 2 years now and aren't showing any signs of pre-mature failure, uneven wear, etc, so maybe they're not as crap as I thought...

My camper bus came with Hankook tires on them (South Korea). They seem to be ok, but when they come time for replacement I'll likely use one of the major name brands.

 

[nconn]

Thanks everyone for your response. It seems the general agreement is to stick with the name brands. I will also go with Lug tires instead since I plan on boondocking full time.

 

[jenandjon]

Kinda depends on your usage plans. I've got a bunch of cheap chinese crap on one of my party buses - but it only does 3000 miles a year and rarely goes further than about 30 miles out from my home base so I'm not as worried about it. The drives are recaps, I don't know much about who actually did the recap. Steers are virgin all-position I believe They've actually held up well for 2 years now and aren't showing any signs of pre-mature failure, uneven wear, etc, so maybe they're not as crap as I thought...

My camper bus came with Hankook tires on them (South Korea). They seem to be ok, but when they come time for replacement I'll likely use one of the major name brands.

Hankook is a decent tire. One thing with recaps is you have to watch the heat and air pressure. You say you are only going 30 miles from home you should have no problems at all. I wouldn't run them over 10 years past the carcass date.

 

[mmoore6856]

Hankook is a decent tire. One thing with recaps is you have to watch the heat and air pressure. You say you are only going 30 miles from home you should have no problems at all. I wouldn't run them over 10 years past the carcass date.

they do inspect the casings when they recap them but... how good did the previous owner take care of them? did they check the air preasure often? did they curb it? was it overloaded? i know they do a good job most of the time these days but not for me

 

[nconn]

Thanks everyone for your help!

I ended up going with Yokohama TY517. Definitely more than I wanted to spend initially but figured better safe then sorry. I also wanted some that were good in sand, wet grass and winter. These said they are rated for mud and sand plus the reviews are really positive for mud, sand, and snow.

 

[mmoore6856]

Now buy a rubber preservative and a couple times a year wash the sidewalls and when dry spray them with armor all or similar product to help prevent dry rot cracks

 

[cadillackid]

Now buy a rubber preservative and a couple times a year wash the sidewalls and when dry spray them with armor all or similar product to help prevent dry rot cracks

and dont curb them.. alternatively you can rotate them inside to outside every year or 2 to distribute the UV on them..



alot of RV owners invest in tire covers to help with UV deterioration when their rigs are parked either camping or at hone and not being driven for awhile..

 

[mmoore6856]

Yea those covers really help as sunlite is really bad for tires

 

[jenandjon]

Those are the exact tires on the semi-truck I drive. I am off road quite a bit. They get along pretty good on mud and snow and not too loud on the highway.

 

[dbsoundman]

inflation is key. inflating for your load range and staying in range of the placard in your bus.. dont just go up to 100 or 105 PSI because the tire shop puts them there.. over inflation you'll wear down the center tread prematurely.. under inflation you can overheat the tire and wear the edges rather quickly as well..

This is the first time I've heard inflation brought up, specifically inflating "to your load". Obviously a skoolie isn't as heavily loaded as a bus full of booger-pickers, so should we air down a bit below the factory spec? My bus says 105 so I usually go somewhere between 105-110.

 

[incubus]

We put a set of the cheap tires on the rear of a Thomas and the rear of an international. They make a strange whining noise, and when I go around turns it feels like the rear end of the bus is sliding out of the turn. I think the sidewalls fold over. You get what you pay for. However if you're only going to have them on there while you complete your build might not be a bad thing

 

[jenandjon]

You need to find the weight to air pressure ration chart for your tires. Weigh the bus and air then down accordingly.

I can save you some time. I have the exact tires n my HDT and my commercial truck. Pulling my camper I have only 10,000 lbs. on the rear. I am running 75 lbs. of air in them. That is as low as the chart goes.

 

[jbeech]

I don't drive a skoolie, we have a Freightliner hotshot - sleeper with 24' box, rear roll up door, lightly loaded for occasional camping . . . I attend model airplane weekend flying events in an around Florida.

I ponied up for Goodyear. Open lug drive tires as we go into grassy fields and set up. Not off roading by any stretch, but why risk it? Bit noisy but par for the game.

Maintenance, as all have mentioned tire pressure, and I keep tire covers on whenever it's not moving. That, and Siri reminds me every three months to spray Armor All.

Good luck.

 

[jbeech]

Oops, double post.