Tire load rating & a Public Service Announcement

So this weekend marks the start of week long camping vacation - the first week we have taken in the camper for a number of years. The plan is to tour the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. However, as fate would have it, we had a death in the family which necessitated a stop in Woodinville, WA (greater Seattle) for a funeral service yesterday before heading to the campground last night.

After the service we are heading back down I-405 (very busy freeway in Seattle), on our way to the Washington coast. I noticed the truck pulling to the right, and a moment later someone honked their horn at me. Uh-oh. Yup, I ended up at exit 3 sitting in the exit lane split area, with a flat right front tire.

Now, being the self-sufficient bunch that us truck camper types usually are, I am prepared for this contingency! I know my spare tire has air, and I know it is a Load Range E tire. I even have a tire gauge handy to double check the air pressure, and a battery powered tire pump just in case.

Of course, the tire is under the rear of the truck bed and is lowered by inserting a rod in to a crank. Only problem is the hole is covered by the camper tanks. So unhook the tie downs and there I was, lifting the camper up on the side of the freeway. I got the spare down, grabbed the jack, and proceeded to lift up the front of the truck.

And here is where the plan went sideways. I bought this truck in 2004 from a private party. Shortly after buying the truck I noticed there were steel cords sticking out of one of the left front tire. I got that replaced and noticed the tire had been patched on the inside. I happened across the previous owner shortly thereafter and asked him about it. He confirmed the truck was in an area with some shale that had punctured the tread of the tire. I assumed he had put the spare on, fixed up the flat, and sold the truck.

That assumption led me to never check the emergency tire change gear. I knew it was all there and it looked new. I never, however, took it out to confirm it was what it was supposed to be. And while I could have intellectually surmised the pending problem, I never put the pieces together.

The truck came to me with aftermarket wheels. When those were installed, the lug nuts were switched to the chrome acorn style lug nuts. Yup, you can see where this is going. The factory emergency lug nut wrench does not fit the aftermarket lug nuts!!!

No worries, I carry some spare tools with me (see, there is that self-sufficiency again). I'll just grab a socket and ratchet, and try to break lug nuts free. That was working until the ratchet extension broke.

I ended up having to call a tow truck to bring me a lug nut wrench. $176 per hour, one hour minimum, $196.01 with tax. Gave me some line about that is the price required by the WA State Patrol since I was on a freeway. Easiest money the guy made that night. They had me over a barrel, and took full advantage of it. Yes, I immediately found the nearest auto parts store an picked up a lug nut wrench.

So... PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT... Take a few minutes and check those emergency roadside tools. Make sure that lug nut wrench actually fits your lug nuts!

Question #1 for the forum....

I have Goodyear Wranglers 275/65R16's on the truck. They went on in 2006, the year we got the camper. They weren't quite due to be replaced yet, but another year or two would have been time. They are 10-ply load range E, and have a carrying capacity of 3450lbs per tire. At the time these were the highest carry capacity tires I could find on the market. Are these still the best, or are there better ones out there in 2015?

Question #2 for the forum....

The spare is a full size load range E tire. I put 120 miles on it last night getting to the campground. We have probably 700 miles to go in our planned trip on Hwy 101 in Washington, not all of that will be with the camper on. Should I risk it, or should I try to find new tires on Monday (keeping in mind specific high carrying capacity tires may be hard to find on a need-it-today short notice)?

Thanks,
-Eric

Truck Campers

26 Replies

rider997
Explorer
Sep 16, 2015
Eric&Lisa wrote:

I ended up purchasing "Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar" to replace the no longer available "Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armor" tires I had (they look pretty close to the same tire, just re-branded). The interesting thing is the Goodyear website lists these tires as having only a 2756lb carrying capacity. I double checked before they were mounted, the new tires have a 3415lb carrying capacity stamped on them. So that is good to know.

Those are excellent tires. Great choice. Unfortunately, Goodyear has discontinued some seemingly popular sizes recently and their suggested replacements aren't as good, overall, in my opinion.
_DJ_1
Explorer II
Sep 16, 2015
Cool Cat!!

Yeah we still have Gracie, older and grayer, still misses Lisa!!
2oldman
Explorer II
Sep 15, 2015
Nice kitty.
Eric_Lisa
Explorer II
Sep 15, 2015
~DJ~ wrote:
Hey Eric & Lisa!!

Been a while. How are the cats? Glad everything worked out OK. I think you made a good choice on the tires.

Just wondering if there is any way to pick up a 2nd winch handle and modify/shorten it to use with the camper on. Maybe to use with a ratchet wrench?

Thanks for posting this. Should be a wake up call to anyone who has not "gone through the motions" of using their jacks and lowering the spare!!!

Howdy DJ! Good to hear from you!

Great question. For our setup, the tanks come down directly behind the bumper. So there is no way to get the unwind handle in to the hole. I had to lift up the camper off the bed of the truck, and then another 6 inches to allow access to the hole. Part of the emergency tools is a ratcheting handle which fits over the end of the rod. I was laying on the pavement using the ratchet to crank down the spare tire. There is a 2nd extension rod which would have gotten to the edge of the camper, but I found it more expeditious to just lay down and do it. Besides, I would have had to crawl underneath to retrieve the tire any way - no way around getting dirty. I tossed the bad tire in the camper and got off the freeway before trying to crank it up under the bed.

Yeah, you hit part of my purpose for posting this adventure - give someone else the hint to check their gear. I thought I was good to go and found out the hard (and expensive) way.

Thanks for asking about the cats! We are down to one now, and he is my little pal - Archie. We started taking him camping with us last fall and he does really well. He just sleeps in the back seat while we are traveling and runs the camper as his domicile when we are stopped. I took this picture five minutes ago while he is patiently waiting for his breakfast:

Greetings to K. Is Gracie still your traveling companion?

Thanks,
-Eric
_DJ_1
Explorer II
Sep 15, 2015
Hey Eric & Lisa!!

Been a while. How are the cats? Glad everything worked out OK. I think you made a good choice on the tires.

Just wondering if there is any way to pick up a 2nd winch handle and modify/shorten it to use with the camper on. Maybe to use with a ratchet wrench?

Thanks for posting this. Should be a wake up call to anyone who has not "gone through the motions" of using their jacks and lowering the spare!!!
ticki2
Explorer
Sep 15, 2015
Steelhog wrote:

Next time anyone starts to quibble about tires, take a measuring tape to their tires. For the sake of discussion, 8" wide tread, total length of contact with the ground, 4" at best. SO...4" x 8" = 32in/sq x 4 = 128in/sq. Now measure your feet with shoes on. Again just an example, 3" x 10" = 30 in/sq x 2 = 60in/sq. Basically you are counting on about the same contact patch as two guy wearing size 10 shoes. All you are asking that 128 square inches of rubber to do is carry you, your TC, and your family at 60mph in summer, AND save your life if some ding-a-ling pulls out in front of you. Pretty amazing what tires are expected to do for 30-50,000 miles.

I wonder how many size 10 shoes have 80psi in them ?:@
Grit_dog
Navigator III
Sep 15, 2015
Wow, thanks for sharing that story??
Eric_Lisa
Explorer II
Sep 14, 2015
finsruskw wrote:
This begs the question, how in the world did you get the spare out from under the truck with the camper on?

Yeah, despite living in a Facebook world, I did not grab a picture of my camper with the jacks down, lifted off the bed, sitting in the middle of an exit on a busy Seattle freeway! :o As fellow TC owners I hope you will join me in a chuckle after the fact, as it is not an experience I care to repeat.

So I started making calls this morning, and had no luck in Aberdeen, WA. I did find a Discount Tire (formerly America's Tire) in Sequim, WA with tires in stock. I have dealt with them locally for most of the tires I purchase. This was about 25 miles from where we are camping, so that clinched the decision. I made the 170 mile drive today around the west side of the Olympic Peninsula on the spare with no problem.

As an Oregon resident, I am tax-exempt from purchases on goods (not services) in Washington State. However, I have found the further I am from the state border, the less likely it is businesses are willing to make the extra effort to process the tax-exempt transaction. Being as Sequim is a good 200 miles from Oregon, they held me to the fire and made me pay state sales tax. However, to their credit, they gave me a $100 rebate form which is pretty close to the amount of tax I paid. So they made it fair.

I ended up purchasing "Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar" to replace the no longer available "Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armor" tires I had (they look pretty close to the same tire, just re-branded). The interesting thing is the Goodyear website lists these tires as having only a 2756lb carrying capacity. I double checked before they were mounted, the new tires have a 3415lb carrying capacity stamped on them. So that is good to know.

The old tires had 5/32nds left on them. 3/32nds - 4/32nds is time to think about replacement, and anything less than 3/32nds is replacement time. As I said, I knew they were getting close to replacement, but they still had a little service life left in them.

A curious observation.... They were stacking the old tires next to the new tires. I noticed the old tires (when stacked on their side) were about 3/4" per tire higher than the new tires. This caused me a moment of alarm as I promptly double checked the tire sizes and confirmed they were the same. The shop simply said that is how used tires often look compared to new tires. I never knew that.

The culprit turned out to be a rock stuck in the tire just right. It went through the tread and caused a slow leak which was evident once the tire was removed. The Goodyear tires "with Kevlar" did their job. It held together, despite being completely flat, at highway speeds until I could get stopped. It didn't shred apart.

Thanks for all the advice!
-Eric
Buzzcut1
Nomad II
Sep 14, 2015
finsruskw wrote:
This begs the question, how in the world did you get the spare out from under the truck with the camper on?

I can see no way to remove mine short of unloading the camper far enough to gain access to the winch crank to let it down.

This begs an additional ??, any of you folks using some sort of front mount to carry the spare on/over/in front of the front bumper. What is available out there for thy\is kind of set-up that won't look like "Custom by Cobble Craft"

some folks rotate the winch mount so that its accesable though the wheel well. On my Ford F350 and Lance 1055 I have tons of room underneath to use the factory rod and a 30cm left handed metric adjustable wrench to lower or raise the spare
finsruskw
Explorer
Sep 14, 2015
This begs the question, how in the world did you get the spare out from under the truck with the camper on?

I can see no way to remove mine short of unloading the camper far enough to gain access to the winch crank to let it down.

This begs an additional ??, any of you folks using some sort of front mount to carry the spare on/over/in front of the front bumper. What is available out there for thy\is kind of set-up that won't look like "Custom by Cobble Craft"