fix one issue, find another

locster wrote:
If you have Michelin tires that are within 5 years of purchase and have sidewall cracks, you can call Michelin to have them replaced or give you a discount on the replacement. It took me 5 minutes on the phone with them, and they sent me to the nearest dealer for inspection. Dealer reported back to Michelin which offered me 40% discount on replacement tires since I already put 35K miles on the old ones. All done in one day.

I was going to pay full price to replace my cracked tires, but I'm glad that I decided to give Michelin a call at the last minute.

well, crap! too late for that and we were certainly within 5 years of purchase. afraid to leave idaho with cracked tires and were on our way out of town. thanks for info--can maybe help someone else with same situation. DH had always sworn by michelin; now have Toyo (from Les Swab).

If you have Michelin tires that are within 5 years of purchase and have sidewall cracks, you can call Michelin to have them replaced or give you a discount on the replacement. It took me 5 minutes on the phone with them, and they sent me to the nearest dealer for inspection. Dealer reported back to Michelin which offered me 40% discount on replacement tires since I already put 35K miles on the old ones. All done in one day.

I was going to pay full price to replace my cracked tires, but I'm glad that I decided to give Michelin a call at the last minute.

I must agree with those who remarked on cracks in tires. I replaced all 6 of mine last spring when I discovered fine cracks. Even though there was a ton of tread left on all of them I played it safe.

The battery might be something simple as low electrolyte level. When was the last time that you checked that?

Bordercollie wrote:
Motorhomes are heavily loaded "light trucks" Just sitting parked in the sun and weather, the tires deteriorate to where they become unsafe in four or more years time. Appearance of tires, i.e. tread depth, etc is meaningless. Sidewall cracks that are deeper than 1/16 inch indicate "time to replace". Better for tires if rig is driven for some distance (often) than left sitting in driveway for months at a time. Average RV mileage is only around 5000 miles per year

I got almost 10 years and almost fifty thousand miles on my first Class C. When I replaced them after a second blowout, in a few month period, they still had plenty of tread left. That MH was used as a daily driver for the whole time I had it. Drove it back and forth to work everyday. That was only 4 miles a day, but it moved at least 5 days a week.

Motorhomes are heavily loaded "light trucks" Just sitting parked in the sun and weather, the tires deteriorate to where they become unsafe in four or more years time. Appearance of tires, i.e. tread depth, etc is meaningless. Sidewall cracks that are deeper than 1/16 inch indicate "time to replace". Better for tires if rig is driven for some distance (often) than left sitting in driveway for months at a time. Average RV mileage is only around 5000 miles per year

While you have it open, I added a Trik-L-Start to that very solenoid on my rig to keep the chassis battery charged while plugged in. One of those heavy wires goes straight to the starter, from which another very heavy wire goes to the chassis battery.

I hooked the source wire to the lug on that solenoid that goes to the house battery.

I hooked the load wire to the lug on that solenoid that goes to the starter/chassis battery.

I hooked the ground wire to the body of the solenoid (which is, itself, grounded).

For the first 3 or 4 years I owned the RV, the chassis battery ran down over the winter, until it finally died. When I replaced the battery, I added the Trik-L-Start, and have had no problems with the chassis battery since.

Thanks for letting us know! Glad you are good to go.

thank you all for the excellent and fast responses! the pictures were exactly what our set up looked like (located in the 2nd basement storage behind the door. we'd just replaced the house batteries last year; knew it shouldn't be that. the DH sometimes hits switches on his way out the door, checked to make sure the aux battery switch was on. DH got out his handy-dandy voltmeter and we checked the charge. we are now looking good on the electrical--learned something new--and the system looks like a go.

the tires, oh yeah, not even going to revisit that situation. got out the handy dandy charge card. now have two new tires on the front. they were 4-5 yrs old; still good tread, but i didn't like those cracks. valve stems; agree. need to be replaced. we will revisit that issue next SS day, assuming the feds don't stop that, too.

again, thanks everyone! always appreciate the advice and why i come back so often!:D

Excellent description CloudDriver.:)

Frosty's Mom, you might be better off disconnecting the wires from the negative terminal of both the house and the chassis batteries before attempting to replace the solenoid. Might save a lot of sparking.