PW Excel Vehicle Weight and Tires – Part Two
Thank you for the response to my past post. In answer to questions about my suspicion that gas mileage will be less with the new tires, my reasoning went like this: I have no experience manufacturing or marketing vehicles, but one of the things I would consider is to maximize the gas mileage; high numbers sound good to buyers. I would use a tire with the qualities to make this happen, including low rolling resistance. This tire may not shine in other tire characteristics. The other thing I would do is design the power train, including transmission shift points, with maximizing gas mileage in mind. I have changed both the tire and the shift points, and I do not think that the small overdrive added by the new larger tire diameter will trump the changes. If I could get away with it, I would have the speedometer / odometer read higher than actual; so that the on- board computer would report higher gas mileage to the driver. Our Excel originally showed a speed 3 to 4 miles per hour above actual; at highway speeds using roadside radar. And now, the promised follow up post.
In my previous post, “PW Excel Vehicle Weight and Tires – Part One” of 1 August 2013, I described some of the reasons we decided on replacing the stock Hankook tires to increase the safety margin of the rear tires. We changed to Michelin LTX M/S2 LT 265/75R 16/E 123R Highway All-Season black sidewall tires. Below are some more events that led us to the Michelins; some of them may even be valid.
I have been working through the older posts to learn from the experiences of other Pleasureway owners. Thank you to all who have taken the time to share what you have learned.
The following post numbers refer to the Yahoo Pleasure Way Owners Group that I wrote about in my 30 July 2013 post, “Pleasure Way Answers”.
A thought provoking thread started with a report by Chuck Jones in his message number 22375 about a blow out and how it affected his family and Excel. In a follow up post number 22459, Chuck expands on the facts related to his tragedy and left me with these two haunting sentences: “But go outside and look at your tires. That’s what mine looked like before the accident.” In Chuck’s post number 24787, he suggests that we look at the pictures of his wrecked Excel in the Photos section of the group; under “Hankook Tire Failure”.
As you can imagine, there are many other related posts about stock Hankook Ford tires between the numbers above. One of the more interesting, to me, was Gordon Bartlett’s post number 22407 where he lists a clickable web address to the Michelin related video, “RV – The Critical Factor”. RV tires are exploded while an RV is driving down the road and what happens and what to do are explained. Has anyone in the group ever had the presence of mind to apply the recommended reaction to a blowout on any vehicle? Also, see Gordon’s comment on his experience with Michelin tires in the same post. I understand that things sometimes do not work out as we think they should. In Southern California we have a phrase for that: “O.J.s happen”.
In 1974 our family of four picked up our Volkswagen camper at Westfalia-Werke in Germany. The camper came with Michelin tires. It was winter, so we headed south until we were warm. Warm ended up being in Morocco where the dirt roads in the south were rough and it was much smoother to get up some speed and float on the soft stuff along side the roads. This trip was the start of my appreciation for what Michelin tires could do. Or more truthfully, what tubeless radial tires were capable of. I grew up with bias-ply tires with their low mileage life and plentiful flats. I fell for the perennial lie from tire shops: “ We have fixed the problem with recapped tires coming undone; the new ones are OK.” I re-grooved my bald tires with a hot soldering iron, and even counted the tire plies in the worn spots to see how much tire life was really left. Remember, the air was contained in an inner tube. I still marvel at the teenage mind. Yes, these new radial tires seemed amazing. For cost reasons, the VW tires were our last Michelin tires until the present.
Almost all of the tires launched into space with the Space Shuttles were Michelins. Six tires each launch, to be used when landing; filled with nitrogen. Four main gear 34 ply tires, each used only once. Two nose gear 20 ply tires used a maximum of two times.
“Made in U. S. A.” is on our Michelin sidewalls.
The Michelin XPS RIB looked like a tough tire; it can even be recapped, but I did not find a size or weight capacity larger than the stock Hankooks.
Consumer Reports 2012 Buying Guide placed the Michelin LTX M/S2 at the top of its All-Season Truck Tire ratings. Hankook DynaPro HT was rated just below the four Michelin rated tires. However, there is no evaluation heading of “ How long tire lasted under maximum rated load use”. The DynaPro HT is the premium tire to our Excel DynaPro AS. Hankook testing shows the HT as superior with less noise, better snow traction, better dry and wet braking, and equal in ride to our AS. The AT has a different tread than the AS. The AS is an “all season rib designed to match OEM performance”; I am not exactly sure what that means; maybe gas mileage. The stock DynaPro AS was not on Consumer Reports’ list. The Hankook tires on the rear of our Excel were very warm to the touch after driving; warmer than any other tires I have owned. I do not want entry-level tires back there.
The stock Hankook AS tires have a mileage warrantee of 40,000 miles compared with Michelin’s 70,000 miles.
Michelin tires were very popular in Europe. As we traveled in our VW camper, the Michelin Man would appear on hillsides; waving to us from billboard type structures, as he does now on our new tire sidewalls. Trucks would have small 3-D white Michelin Men mounted on their cab roofs; I remember them as being lit at night. We tried to buy one of these truck men, but only ended up with a Michelin Man key chain fob. The Michelin Green Guide Books were amazing; our rate of travel noticeably slowed. We bought a bag of potatoes, a bag of onions, a large garland of garlic, and we doubled our planned travel time in Europe to eight months. On a sandy Mediterranean beach, we celebrated our first Tireman Day; still an annual family holiday; 29 September.
There are many tires out there that we could use on the Excel. The simplest way to find out what worked best seemed to be to contact Pleasure Way; they have all kinds of experience. In the way that I ask my family doctor the bottom line question, I asked our Pleasureway contact what brand and model tire would he want on his personal Excel. I did not receive an answer; must be lawyers involved in here somewhere.
A check using Google shows that the LT265/75R has been used on E-350 vans for years.
The other tire that I would consider: Goodyear. A “too good to hope for” activity materialized when six members of our family were invited for a ride on the Goodyear blimp, Eagle – N2A. It had the older pitch wheel / foot rudder cable controls for the pilot. During the landing, the pilot’s gyrations reminded me of the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain frantically working the levers, wheels, and controls; one moment the ground was filling our view and then the sky would appear for its turn.
MotorHome magazine Reader’s Choice Awards results for 2012 for RV Tires: Michelin, Gold and Goodyear, Silver.
These were advertising dollars well spent on me, but it was the many posts about Hankook and Michelin tires and descriptions of a workable solution to my concern of increasing the rear tire safety margin that resulted in us switching to the larger Michelins. Thank you.
One last thought. It appears that tire design and manufacturing, like lightning strike prediction, are not an exact science. Tire shop technicians have told me that some tires will work well on most cars but be a disaster on one model of car. My story is about our previous Fireball 5th wheel trailer and Ford F-250 tow vehicle. For many years I was happy with the Dayton Timberline tires we used on our Suburbans and the Ford. The Dayton dealer moved out of the area, so when it was time to replace two of the Ford tires I had two Firestones put on the rear wheels. For 25 years the Fireball and Ford had been a team; stable and predictable. The first trip after getting the Firestones, the 5th wheel was all over the road; not staying in our lane. Any turn or bump would set it off swinging back and forth; I did not have much control. I checked all of the running gear and put extra grease on the 5th wheel hitch, but nothing changed. The team was basically unusable. I then moved the trusty Dayton front tires to the rear position and put the Firestones on the front. Instantly the old stability returned; jerking the steering wheel caused no trailer instability. I never put the Firestones in the rear position, again.
After all this talk of tire weight carrying ratings and 80 psi pressures it seems strange that we would air down the eight Ford and Fireball tires to 20 psi when traveling / camping on beach sand; to minimize getting stuck.
Chuck Sorensen
Buellton, California
2012 Excel TS
In my previous post, “PW Excel Vehicle Weight and Tires – Part One” of 1 August 2013, I described some of the reasons we decided on replacing the stock Hankook tires to increase the safety margin of the rear tires. We changed to Michelin LTX M/S2 LT 265/75R 16/E 123R Highway All-Season black sidewall tires. Below are some more events that led us to the Michelins; some of them may even be valid.
I have been working through the older posts to learn from the experiences of other Pleasureway owners. Thank you to all who have taken the time to share what you have learned.
The following post numbers refer to the Yahoo Pleasure Way Owners Group that I wrote about in my 30 July 2013 post, “Pleasure Way Answers”.
A thought provoking thread started with a report by Chuck Jones in his message number 22375 about a blow out and how it affected his family and Excel. In a follow up post number 22459, Chuck expands on the facts related to his tragedy and left me with these two haunting sentences: “But go outside and look at your tires. That’s what mine looked like before the accident.” In Chuck’s post number 24787, he suggests that we look at the pictures of his wrecked Excel in the Photos section of the group; under “Hankook Tire Failure”.
As you can imagine, there are many other related posts about stock Hankook Ford tires between the numbers above. One of the more interesting, to me, was Gordon Bartlett’s post number 22407 where he lists a clickable web address to the Michelin related video, “RV – The Critical Factor”. RV tires are exploded while an RV is driving down the road and what happens and what to do are explained. Has anyone in the group ever had the presence of mind to apply the recommended reaction to a blowout on any vehicle? Also, see Gordon’s comment on his experience with Michelin tires in the same post. I understand that things sometimes do not work out as we think they should. In Southern California we have a phrase for that: “O.J.s happen”.
In 1974 our family of four picked up our Volkswagen camper at Westfalia-Werke in Germany. The camper came with Michelin tires. It was winter, so we headed south until we were warm. Warm ended up being in Morocco where the dirt roads in the south were rough and it was much smoother to get up some speed and float on the soft stuff along side the roads. This trip was the start of my appreciation for what Michelin tires could do. Or more truthfully, what tubeless radial tires were capable of. I grew up with bias-ply tires with their low mileage life and plentiful flats. I fell for the perennial lie from tire shops: “ We have fixed the problem with recapped tires coming undone; the new ones are OK.” I re-grooved my bald tires with a hot soldering iron, and even counted the tire plies in the worn spots to see how much tire life was really left. Remember, the air was contained in an inner tube. I still marvel at the teenage mind. Yes, these new radial tires seemed amazing. For cost reasons, the VW tires were our last Michelin tires until the present.
Almost all of the tires launched into space with the Space Shuttles were Michelins. Six tires each launch, to be used when landing; filled with nitrogen. Four main gear 34 ply tires, each used only once. Two nose gear 20 ply tires used a maximum of two times.
“Made in U. S. A.” is on our Michelin sidewalls.
The Michelin XPS RIB looked like a tough tire; it can even be recapped, but I did not find a size or weight capacity larger than the stock Hankooks.
Consumer Reports 2012 Buying Guide placed the Michelin LTX M/S2 at the top of its All-Season Truck Tire ratings. Hankook DynaPro HT was rated just below the four Michelin rated tires. However, there is no evaluation heading of “ How long tire lasted under maximum rated load use”. The DynaPro HT is the premium tire to our Excel DynaPro AS. Hankook testing shows the HT as superior with less noise, better snow traction, better dry and wet braking, and equal in ride to our AS. The AT has a different tread than the AS. The AS is an “all season rib designed to match OEM performance”; I am not exactly sure what that means; maybe gas mileage. The stock DynaPro AS was not on Consumer Reports’ list. The Hankook tires on the rear of our Excel were very warm to the touch after driving; warmer than any other tires I have owned. I do not want entry-level tires back there.
The stock Hankook AS tires have a mileage warrantee of 40,000 miles compared with Michelin’s 70,000 miles.
Michelin tires were very popular in Europe. As we traveled in our VW camper, the Michelin Man would appear on hillsides; waving to us from billboard type structures, as he does now on our new tire sidewalls. Trucks would have small 3-D white Michelin Men mounted on their cab roofs; I remember them as being lit at night. We tried to buy one of these truck men, but only ended up with a Michelin Man key chain fob. The Michelin Green Guide Books were amazing; our rate of travel noticeably slowed. We bought a bag of potatoes, a bag of onions, a large garland of garlic, and we doubled our planned travel time in Europe to eight months. On a sandy Mediterranean beach, we celebrated our first Tireman Day; still an annual family holiday; 29 September.
There are many tires out there that we could use on the Excel. The simplest way to find out what worked best seemed to be to contact Pleasure Way; they have all kinds of experience. In the way that I ask my family doctor the bottom line question, I asked our Pleasureway contact what brand and model tire would he want on his personal Excel. I did not receive an answer; must be lawyers involved in here somewhere.
A check using Google shows that the LT265/75R has been used on E-350 vans for years.
The other tire that I would consider: Goodyear. A “too good to hope for” activity materialized when six members of our family were invited for a ride on the Goodyear blimp, Eagle – N2A. It had the older pitch wheel / foot rudder cable controls for the pilot. During the landing, the pilot’s gyrations reminded me of the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain frantically working the levers, wheels, and controls; one moment the ground was filling our view and then the sky would appear for its turn.
MotorHome magazine Reader’s Choice Awards results for 2012 for RV Tires: Michelin, Gold and Goodyear, Silver.
These were advertising dollars well spent on me, but it was the many posts about Hankook and Michelin tires and descriptions of a workable solution to my concern of increasing the rear tire safety margin that resulted in us switching to the larger Michelins. Thank you.
One last thought. It appears that tire design and manufacturing, like lightning strike prediction, are not an exact science. Tire shop technicians have told me that some tires will work well on most cars but be a disaster on one model of car. My story is about our previous Fireball 5th wheel trailer and Ford F-250 tow vehicle. For many years I was happy with the Dayton Timberline tires we used on our Suburbans and the Ford. The Dayton dealer moved out of the area, so when it was time to replace two of the Ford tires I had two Firestones put on the rear wheels. For 25 years the Fireball and Ford had been a team; stable and predictable. The first trip after getting the Firestones, the 5th wheel was all over the road; not staying in our lane. Any turn or bump would set it off swinging back and forth; I did not have much control. I checked all of the running gear and put extra grease on the 5th wheel hitch, but nothing changed. The team was basically unusable. I then moved the trusty Dayton front tires to the rear position and put the Firestones on the front. Instantly the old stability returned; jerking the steering wheel caused no trailer instability. I never put the Firestones in the rear position, again.
After all this talk of tire weight carrying ratings and 80 psi pressures it seems strange that we would air down the eight Ford and Fireball tires to 20 psi when traveling / camping on beach sand; to minimize getting stuck.
Chuck Sorensen
Buellton, California
2012 Excel TS
