Tow Vehicle Tire balancing problem, trailering stability.

[RRS2670]

My 2019 Ram 1500 was close enough for new tires, so I just bought some new Continental TerrainContact H/T 275/55/R20 117H XL to replace my Bridgestone Dueler H/L Alenza's that were the same size except they were 113T SL.
For a little background, I've had this trailer stability issue since I bought the truck as noted in several threads ending with sway issues or trailer stability.
So even though problem was improved, it never got totally resolved. JohnB, Tireman9 and myself had discussions about tire sidewall construction and how it can affect trailer oscillation's or tail wagging. It seems LT tires with D or E ply equivalent construction would work the best, but I wanted to maintain my road noise and comfort since this is my every day vehicle and I don't typically go off-road.
These Continental tires got good reviews from Tire Rack, Consumer Reports and Tire Deets. Here's a good description of what Continental wanted to accomplish with these tires:
https://www.tiredeets.com/continenta...ct-h-t-review/

So here's the part I thought would be interesting for discussion about the l tire construction and balancing issue I've had. I bought these about 2 weeks ago from Discount Tire. Did about 200 miles and noticed it had a vibration in the steering wheel the OEM tires never had. Before I went back to have Discount tire look at checking balance, I looked at some of the customer reviews, it seems there were several comments about not being able to balance these tires, several needed to get several sets of tires to get them balanced. I checked date codes and number of weights per wheel before I went back. I also had to lookup info on Road Force Balancing since I wasn't aware of that procedure. Discount tire uses a Hunter Road Force Elite, a very expensive, supposedly accurate machine.

When I brought it back the 1st time, they told me 1 tire was no good because the Roadforce # was 59 lbs, if over 35, tire is bad. They moved the bad tire from front to back until the new tire came in. I could tell, the vibrations went from steering wheel to the seat. Note I noticed that they took all of the weights off of 1 wheel, added 4 - 1/4 oz wts to 1 wheel, and left the 3rd supposedly good wheel the same.

When the 1 tire came in the next day, I told them I wanted them to recheck the 3 tires I was told were good, not just the bad tire. The took a long time, and finally came back and said the new tire was good, had a Road Force reading of 10 lbs, but the other 3 were all bad, confirmed on 2 different balancers. So they ordered 3 more tires.

So this got me thinking about, how did they miss this the first time they installed initial tires, and how did they miss it a second time? The Road Force balancing machine is suppose to be pretty smart to minimize operator mistakes, so it makes me wonder if these guys are properly trained.

Also wonder why Continental seems to have an issue in 2022, the customer reviews I read were from 2020 and 2021, seems like enough time to address any problem. Problem is partly out of round tires or way off on material placement in tire.

So today I went back again to get the other 3 tires. I again asked for all the wheels balanced or checked with the Road Force numbers. The tires came back with Road force readings of 18,24, 22 and 12. They didn't even get the same number on the 1 good tire. The number of 1/4 oz weights/tire were 8, 11, 6 and 9 respectively. I've read the Road Force number should be less than 20, and didn't find anywhere about how much weight is to much. My weights are between 1.5oz upto 2.75oz, I assume these balance weights are reasonable for a 40lb tire.

Just driving home a few miles today the tires seem ok. I have to go to work Wednesday, 45 miles each way on the highway, so I'll see how the perform.

I hope to be testing them with my trailer for a trip in the end of April.

[JohnB]

Hi Russ,

All I can say is WOW!!! The term Road Force Balancing is new to me. BUT, it does bring up something I'll mention.

Now close to 5 years ago, I bought 5 new Continental Conti Trac TR's LT275/70R18/ load range E. In my case, NTB installed and balanced them. This is the 3rd set of these on my F350 as this is what came with the truck from Ford. The 3rd set I had 2 issues, the first being a squirm feeling of stability in the truck on new tires. The first 2 sets never had this. The 3rd set was a totally different story. It took 4,500 miles for that set to wear in enough to be back to the same stable towing truck. It got better around 3,500 miles but took another 1,000 for it totally go away. Again, this never happened on the first 2 sets. In fact the 2nd set only had 500 miles on them when I headed out to Buttonwood for a Sunline rally. And that is an 8 hour tow one way. Never had an issue, but the 3rd set the squirm was there.

This tire break in squirm is not a new thing and it is not specific to Ford, GM or Dodge or Continental. I have read about it in the 3/4 and 1 ton truck situation where other tire brands have it too, but it seems to go away in 500 miles or so. I seem to be the only one I could find it took 4,500 miles or anywhere near that for it to go away. I have never found out why exactly. It seems the newer way they make tires this issue seems to be more common.

The other issue with the 3rd set was after about 1,000 miles the truck was vibrating, in what I thought was a right front tire. It was not that bad the day I got it with the new tires, but it became that way. So I took it back it NTB and said, I must of thrown a weight this thing never was this bad. So they rebalanced the front right is it was majorly out. So they did the other 3 and they too where way out too. The tire manager had no good explanation as he said they calibrate the balancer weekly. He left it with, it must of been operator error in balancing. Now I'm getting close to I will need all new tires again. There is still a little vibration when I go above 55mph, I feel it more empty then when towing. The extra weight and WD hitch may tame some of it down. It is not a bad vibration, I just notice it as I'm always looking for something if it is not 100% right. Early detection saves a lot of pain later on. My 1 ton truck is good ride for that heavy a suspension, but not in the cream puff ride league of a modern day 1 ton any brand truck.
So I chalked up the small vibration to the stiffer truck. Since it has been about 3 to 4 years since the last rebalance, the slight vibration has not gotten worse. I have no idea if the first balance was tire related or the tech messed up something when they balanced them. What I saw in the shop they used was a normal looking spin balancer at that time.

The Continental Conti Trac TR's are being phased out, they do not even show up on the Continental site. And they now recommend the TerrainContact™ H/T for my truck.

I need new tires in the somewhat near future. I'm sort of not really knowing just yet which I'm going to get right now, Cooper Tire is my list of possible right now. I know I will not be getting, Michelin, with my truck combo of a gasser lighter front end, the Michelin side walls are too flexible. The guys with diesels and running the fronts up in the 70, ton 75 psi seem to be OK.

This is a real good one for Tireman9. I would like to hear his take on your tire situation. From all I know, tire molds are very precise, or they use to be anyway. How all your tires are out of whack is a good question.

Thanks for posting this.

John

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by RRS2670

My 2019 Ram 1500 was close enough for new tires, so I just bought some new Continental TerrainContact H/T 275/55/R20 117H XL to replace my Bridgestone Dueler H/L Alenza's that were the same size except they were 113T SL.
For a little background, I've had this trailer stability issue since I bought the truck as noted in several threads ending with sway issues or trailer stability.
So even though problem was improved, it never got totally resolved. JohnB, Tireman9 and myself had discussions about tire sidewall construction and how it can affect trailer oscillation's or tail wagging. It seems LT tires with D or E ply equivalent construction would work the best, but I wanted to maintain my road noise and comfort since this is my every day vehicle and I don't typically go off-road.
These Continental tires got good reviews from Tire Rack, Consumer Reports and Tire Deets. Here's a good description of what Continental wanted to accomplish with these tires:
https://www.tiredeets.com/continenta...ct-h-t-review/

So here's the part I thought would be interesting for discussion about the l tire construction and balancing issue I've had. I bought these about 2 weeks ago from Discount Tire. Did about 200 miles and noticed it had a vibration in the steering wheel the OEM tires never had. Before I went back to have Discount tire look at checking balance, I looked at some of the customer reviews, it seems there were several comments about not being able to balance these tires, several needed to get several sets of tires to get them balanced. I checked date codes and number of weights per wheel before I went back. I also had to lookup info on Road Force Balancing since I wasn't aware of that procedure. Discount tire uses a Hunter Road Force Elite, a very expensive, supposedly accurate machine.

When I brought it back the 1st time, they told me 1 tire was no good because the Roadforce # was 59 lbs, if over 35, tire is bad. They moved the bad tire from front to back until the new tire came in. I could tell, the vibrations went from steering wheel to the seat. Note I noticed that they took all of the weights off of 1 wheel, added 4 - 1/4 oz wts to 1 wheel, and left the 3rd supposedly good wheel the same.

When the 1 tire came in the next day, I told them I wanted them to recheck the 3 tires I was told were good, not just the bad tire. The took a long time, and finally came back and said the new tire was good, had a Road Force reading of 10 lbs, but the other 3 were all bad, confirmed on 2 different balancers. So they ordered 3 more tires.

So this got me thinking about, how did they miss this the first time they installed initial tires, and how did they miss it a second time? The Road Force balancing machine is suppose to be pretty smart to minimize operator mistakes, so it makes me wonder if these guys are properly trained.

Also wonder why Continental seems to have an issue in 2022, the customer reviews I read were from 2020 and 2021, seems like enough time to address any problem. Problem is partly out of round tires or way off on material placement in tire.

So today I went back again to get the other 3 tires. I again asked for all the wheels balanced or checked with the Road Force numbers. The tires came back with Road force readings of 18,24, 22 and 12. They didn't even get the same number on the 1 good tire. The number of 1/4 oz weights/tire were 8, 11, 6 and 9 respectively. I've read the Road Force number should be less than 20, and didn't find anywhere about how much weight is to much. My weights are between 1.5oz upto 2.75oz, I assume these balance weights are reasonable for a 40lb tire.



I don't know of any reason for the tires to be tat different in


Just driving home a few miles today the tires seem ok. I have to go to work Wednesday, 45 miles each way on the highway, so I'll see how the perform.

I hope to be testing them with my trailer for a trip in the end of April.

It isn't clear but I think that you Bridgestone tires were Standard Load "P" type tires. The TerrainContact H/T are "Extra Load". This means they are more like Light Truck tires which may contribute to the change in ride.

Too often when there is a vibration people only think of balance, but as I have shown in my RVTireSafety.net blog you can "balance" a square cement block. Out of round can be the result of a tire not centered on the wheel OR the wheel not being centered on the hub. You can visually check tire centering by looking for the small (1/16") ridge that is just visible above the outer edge of the wheel. You can do a check of the Out of round issues by jacking the tire off the ground and spinning it slowly. There should be almost no visible variation in the clearance of the tire tread to the road surface as the tire rotates. (0.030" max).


Tire construction, in itself should not be contributing to a vibration.


Have you changed tire inflation when you moved from S/L to X/L?

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by JohnB

Hi Russ,

All I can say is WOW!!! The term Road Force Balancing is new to me. BUT, it does bring up something I'll mention.

Now close to 5 years ago, I bought 5 new Continental Conti Trac TR's LT275/70R18/ load range E. In my case, NTB installed and balanced them. This is the 3rd set of these on my F350 as this is what came with the truck from Ford. The 3rd set I had 2 issues, the first being a squirm feeling of stability in the truck on new tires. The first 2 sets never had this. The 3rd set was a totally different story. It took 4,500 miles for that set to wear in enough to be back to the same stable towing truck. It got better around 3,500 miles but took another 1,000 for it totally go away. Again, this never happened on the first 2 sets. In fact the 2nd set only had 500 miles on them when I headed out to Buttonwood for a Sunline rally. And that is an 8 hour tow one way. Never had an issue, but the 3rd set the squirm was there.

This tire break in squirm is not a new thing and it is not specific to Ford, GM or Dodge or Continental. I have read about it in the 3/4 and 1 ton truck situation where other tire brands have it too, but it seems to go away in 500 miles or so. I seem to be the only one I could find it took 4,500 miles or anywhere near that for it to go away. I have never found out why exactly. It seems the newer way they make tires this issue seems to be more common.

The other issue with the 3rd set was after about 1,000 miles the truck was vibrating, in what I thought was a right front tire. It was not that bad the day I got it with the new tires, but it became that way. So I took it back it NTB and said, I must of thrown a weight this thing never was this bad. So they rebalanced the front right is it was majorly out. So they did the other 3 and they too where way out too. The tire manager had no good explanation as he said they calibrate the balancer weekly. He left it with, it must of been operator error in balancing. Now I'm getting close to I will need all new tires again. There is still a little vibration when I go above 55mph, I feel it more empty then when towing. The extra weight and WD hitch may tame some of it down. It is not a bad vibration, I just notice it as I'm always looking for something if it is not 100% right. Early detection saves a lot of pain later on. My 1 ton truck is good ride for that heavy a suspension, but not in the cream puff ride league of a modern day 1 ton any brand truck.
So I chalked up the small vibration to the stiffer truck. Since it has been about 3 to 4 years since the last rebalance, the slight vibration has not gotten worse. I have no idea if the first balance was tire related or the tech messed up something when they balanced them. What I saw in the shop they used was a normal looking spin balancer at that time.

The Continental Conti Trac TR's are being phased out, they do not even show up on the Continental site. And they now recommend the TerrainContact™ H/T for my truck.

I need new tires in the somewhat near future. I'm sort of not really knowing just yet which I'm going to get right now, Cooper Tire is my list of possible right now. I know I will not be getting, Michelin, with my truck combo of a gasser lighter front end, the Michelin side walls are too flexible. The guys with diesels and running the fronts up in the 70, ton 75 psi seem to be OK.

This is a real good one for Tireman9. I would like to hear his take on your tire situation. From all I know, tire molds are very precise, or they use to be anyway. How all your tires are out of whack is a good question.

Thanks for posting this.

John

One question is have you conformed your Rear axle weight when fully loaded. There are SAE industry standard tests that specify 15% pin weight.As you increase the pin weight you unload the truck fronts which can contribute to more "wander" in the steering.

[RRS2670]

Originally Posted by Tireman9

It isn't clear but I think that you Bridgestone tires were Standard Load "P" type tires. The TerrainContact H/T are "Extra Load". This means they are more like Light Truck tires which may contribute to the change in ride.

Too often when there is a vibration people only think of balance, but as I have shown in my RVTireSafety.net blog you can "balance" a square cement block. Out of round can be the result of a tire not centered on the wheel OR the wheel not being centered on the hub. You can visually check tire centering by looking for the small (1/16") ridge that is just visible above the outer edge of the wheel. You can do a check of the Out of round issues by jacking the tire off the ground and spinning it slowly. There should be almost no visible variation in the clearance of the tire tread to the road surface as the tire rotates. (0.030" max).


Tire construction, in itself should not be contributing to a vibration.


Have you changed tire inflation when you moved from S/L to X/L?

Hi Tireman, so let me answer some of your questions, and then comment on others.

You may not remember me, but one of my threads from 2019, about my then new truck, a 2019 Ram 1500 with sway/squirm issues when trailering, John got you involved in the discussion about sidewall stiffness and you gave a description of the various tire load ratings. There was a lot of back and forth discussions about the affect of sidewall stiffness and how it played into potential trailering issues.

Anyway this is kind of the follow up on that as I needed new tires. My original Bridgestone Duellers are standard load tires. I intentionally wanted and bought the Continental tires in the exact same size but the are extra load. If you read the TireDeets link I had in my first post of this thread, it talks about Continental wanting to provide a tire for SUV's and light truck that were designed with heavier loads and better trailering capability than a standard load tire. The construction has this highway tire is similar to an all Terrain tire that has stiffer/stronger sidewalls. My OEM SL Bridgestone weighs 39 lbs, the Continental XL tire weighs 40 lbs. I assume this extra weight is in the sidewall reinforcement
So yes this new XL tire in theory wouldn't ride as smooth as the OEM SL tire.
But it was more than that, you can tell when the steering wheel is vibrating from an imbalance.

As a quick follow up on the ride after the 2nd set of new Continental tires, I drove 90 miles today, all highway at speeds upto 75mph on combo of asphalt and concrete roads. I'm happy with the ride now. It's like night and day difference from the vibrating front end I had on the 1st set.


So I'm not sure if your familiar with Road Force Balancing, I wasn't, and I was surprised to hear that John said he wasn't either. I'm the kind of nerdy guy that always wants to understand thing, so I researched this and even watched some training video. I thought I'd give a link to the manufacturer website and a 1-2 minute video that explains some of the basics. Also I'm attaching a "Road Force Balancing Explained for Auto Mechanics", it's not to long either, give a little more detail.
https://www.hunter.com/wheel-balance...-elite/#vision

https://www.autotrainingcentre.com/b...uto-mechanics/

So part of the sophistication of the Hunter Road Force Balancer is that it has lazers and other sensors to detect out of roundness and centering of the wheel to minimize operator error. I just wonder if in my case if the operators are properly trained. The Discount tire I go to has like 6 bays and over a dozen guys changing and balancing tires. Anyway one guy there spent a bunch of time checking and double checking on different balancers to determine the tires were not serviceable, that's why I got new ones. THe lazer proved the wheels were running true, but the tires were either oval or had stiff spots or extremely soft spots in their construction, that caused the excessive Road Force Readings. According to the Discount tire Tech, the Road force limits in the software, anything over 35 lbs indicate a faulty tire.
Low profile tires have been more of the problem, and mine are in that category.

To answer your tire inflation question, yes the tire pressure is different from the Ram posted pressure on the vehicle for the OEM SL of 36psi front and rear. Tire Discount automatically calculates new tire pressures in their receipt/invoices software when a replacement tire has a different load index from the OEM. In my case it only went from 36, up to 37 psi, which will be fine for my everyday use. But the Discount tire guy suggested I up the pressure to 40 PSI when pulling my trailer. These new XL tires go to a maximum pressure of 51 psi, my Bridgestone SL could only go to a maximum 44 psi.

FYI, I think JohnB was referring to the 2019 discussion of tire wander/squirm in his post here. I'm sure John has his weight distribution adjustments for his hitch well in hand. We've had numerous discussions about tongue wt and axle loading.

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Tireman9

One question is have you conformed your Rear axle weight when fully loaded. There are SAE industry standard tests that specify 15% pin weight.As you increase the pin weight you unload the truck fronts which can contribute to more "wander" in the steering.

Hi Roger,

Yes, I have confirmed my camper tongue weights and the truck axle loads. I have a travel trailer which has a 15% (TT of GVW) loaded tongue weight that varies up to 16% when I load our bicycles on the front of the camper.

I use a weight distributing hitch to return the majority of the lost front axle weight close to unhitched front axle weight to help ward off oversteer per the newer SAE guideline. I am 100# lighter on the front axle of the truck when WD is set. This is 80% front axle load restoration, FALR.

I am not feeling wander in the steering, more of an instability in the front end when a large wind gust hits the side of the camper which was very aggravated when the last set of new tires was installed. I am used the Reese dual cam WD hitch with 1,700# WD bars as my loaded tongue weight is 1,500 to 1,600#. The TT is just under 10,000# loaded.

I have run into this same issue on my prior 2500 truck with a smaller travel trailer camper, also which had 18% loaded tongue weight with more closer to 90% FALR, again using the Reese DC WD hitch. But in this case it was true soft side walls of the tires creating the issue when I installed new first generation Michelin LTX tires. I had Uniroyal Steel Tex tires prior which had a much stiffer sidewall and ran them at 50 psi fronts which was door sticker on the 2500 Suburban. The rears were at 80psi. What I found was, the DC hitch creates high friction to help hold the trailer ball connection to the truck as stiff. But the truck itself has to stay stiff to the road or you get an instability. On this setup, tire tire was not moving on the pavement, the truck was shifting in the side wall flex, the end result, the truck body shifted on the front. I aired up the front 10 psi and a global shift in truck stability occurred. I tried 70psi, but that was too hard, for the front end weight. The truck would bounce hard to the left or right going over a small bump, so I went back down to 65 psi and towed that way until I traded the truck.

The F350 and the 3rd set of new Continentals created this same feeling in the truck but I think from a different source. It was like the tire friction was changing to the pavement. I do not know that for a fact, only speculating as the tire sidewalls I thought were the same build on this same tire. I specifically was not going to change tire brands or styles as the first two sets of the same tires performed as I wanted them too.

But in this 3rd tires set case, I already had 2 sets of the same tire on the truck, same axle weights, same tire pressures, same loaded trailer weights that I had run for the last approx. 8 years. In this case the tire changed and I really never pin pointed the root cause. I check and reoptimized the WD hitch 3 times to no avail. The only thing that helped get the stability back was more miles on the tires. I know new tires need a wear break in, but this I thought was in the 500 mile range. I could feel it slightly getting better at 1,000 miles, then a little more at 2,500 then to 3,500 and finally at 4,500 the truck was very stable again. No other adjustments or weight changes.

This one really had me stumped. It is like the tire molding process changed between June 2009 when I bought the 2nd set of Contitrac Tr's that had no issues, same camper, same truck, same weights same WD hitch and settings. Then come mid year 2015 and I have this issue on the 3rd set of Contitrac Tr's and the truck changed stability from the start of the new tires. Do you know anything that went on in the tire industry between 2009 and 2015 in the tire molding process? I only have those 2 dates to bracket a range of time.

Next spring 2023 I need new tires on the truck and I have to figure out what tire I will put on as the Contitrac are close to no longer available. And I'm not sure I want them either after the last go around.

Thanks

John

[RRS2670]

Hi John,
After being curious about the Continental tire manufacturing process, I did find that a molding process may have changed in 2015, not sure if it would be before or after your last set of tires.
https://www.continental-tires.com/ca...ise-tire-molds

I saw a least two different recalls for Continental in last couple of years, I wonder if that is typical among other tire manufacturers. I didn't realize how intertwined the tire manufacturing is. Did you know Continental owns General Tire, and that Michelin owns Uniroyal in the US, but Continental owns Uniroyal in Europe?
https://howtocreate.com/tutorials/qu...l-tires-82461/

I wonder if some of the issues are dependent on the plant where they were made?
The reviews for my particular Continental tires were very high, especially handling in all conditions. So far the only thing I know for sure is the Continentals I bought are way better on wet pavement, even though they're not broke in yet. My Bridgestone tires were terrible on wet pavement. Hopefully I don't have any of the issues that the recalls had (sidewall blowout on 1, over-curred tires on the other), only time will tell.

I'll let you know if these seem better when trailering, that was the main reason for going with these tires. I'm tentatively going on a trip to NC, SC and Paducah KY, that should be a good test.

I never told you how the Bridgestones handled on my Yellowstone trip last August. I pressured the rear tires to 44 psi and the fronts to 42 psi. This made some improvement running over the 36 psi truck placard pressure, so I could run at 70mph most of the time, but started feeling that instability on a couple of windy days and backed down to 60-65 mph. In Wyoming, speed limit is 80 mph, I only got to that once or twice for passing, didn't like how that felt at all. In case someone askes, my new Goodyear Endurance "D" trailer tires have N, 87mph rating, I think the old trailer Marathone tires were only rated at 65 mph.

I have to also mention that the trip to Yellowstone was my first one with the over/under axle conversion. I wonder if that extra 4 or 5 inches of height would make much difference in trailer stability? I know you've done a few of those over/under conversions, have you noticed much difference in handling after doing them?

Hope all is well,
Russ

[mainah]

Interesting. As a young buck I balanced tires with a bubble balancer and now with fancy electronic ones (I'm a tire balance freak) and frankly never had an issue. Yeah when you approach a pound and a half of tire weights it's time to think about what's wrong with this tire? Trailer wagging I have all ways fixed with weight distribution in the camper.

[RRS2670]

I'm not sure where the 1.5 lbs of tire wts came from in your comment, maybe just a misprint. The weights were 1.5 oz to 2.75 oz with the current my Continentals. If you were referring to the Road Force, which is in lbs of force applied by a roller to the tire, 1.5 lbs would be a really good setup. If you look at the links I attached, there's much more detail on the Hunter Road Force Elite Balancer. It seems that this type of balancer became more popular with all of the low profile or aftermarket wheels and tires that seem to have more issues with what feels like an unbalanced tire.
The tire balancing isn't the whole problem, the effects of sidewall differences in rigidity and out of roundness can induce a vibration that is similar to out of balance tires. If you're interested go to the Hunter Engineering Site, there are videos of how the Hunter Road Force Elite works.

[JohnB]

Hi Russ,

A few comments below

Originally Posted by RRS2670

Hi John,
After being curious about the Continental tire manufacturing process, I did find that a molding process may have changed in 2015, not sure if it would be before or after your last set of tires.
https://www.continental-tires.com/ca...ise-tire-molds

Your link seemed to only take me to the main Continental site, it broke apart and defaulted to the main site. But I think I backed into what you found by the wording. This link may work better on the forum, or not... Lets try it. It is I think the European site.

https://www.continental-tires.com/ca...ise-tire-molds

Molding modern day tires seems to be a lot more complex then years back. And the new trend to shorter side walls with big rims adds a new dynamic too.

The issue I had on my last set of Continetal's to get broke in, is not limited to only Continental's, so this may be industry wide thing but yet not everyone who tows may not find the problem. Following other RV forums, the new tire squirm issue shows up on other tire brands and Dodge, GM and Ford 3/4 ton and larger vehicles. These all seemed to happen after they got off the OEM tire and had to change tires. In my case, it was he 3rd set of tires.

It may be the new molding process has some affect on this. Now if it is tire to road friction or sidewalls stiffness after flexing enough makes the tire stiffer, I'm not really sure. I do know it is common to be told any new tire needs a break in period in as a general thought (~ 500 miles), just it seems the new tire break in period to go away is a lot quicker then I had.

Originally Posted by RRS2670

I saw a least two different recalls for Continental in last couple of years, I wonder if that is typical among other tire manufacturers. I didn't realize how intertwined the tire manufacturing is. Did you know Continental owns General Tire, and that Michelin owns Uniroyal in the US, but Continental owns Uniroyal in Europe?
https://howtocreate.com/tutorials/qu...l-tires-82461/

I wonder if some of the issues are dependent on the plant where they were made?
The reviews for my particular Continental tires were very high, especially handling in all conditions. So far the only thing I know for sure is the Continentals I bought are way better on wet pavement, even though they're not broke in yet. My Bridgestone tires were terrible on wet pavement. Hopefully I don't have any of the issues that the recalls had (sidewall blowout on 1, over-curred tires on the other), only time will tell.

I'll let you know if these seem better when trailering, that was the main reason for going with these tires. I'm tentatively going on a trip to NC, SC and Paducah KY, that should be a good test.

Large corporate buying of big guys to acquire other brands seems to be the new way. Regardless of what industry. It seems tires are not left out of this acquisition situation. And no, I have not kept up on who owns who in the tire world. Thanks for the update.

Originally Posted by RRS2670

I never told you how the Bridgestones handled on my Yellowstone trip last August. I pressured the rear tires to 44 psi and the fronts to 42 psi. This made some improvement running over the 36 psi truck placard pressure, so I could run at 70mph most of the time, but started feeling that instability on a couple of windy days and backed down to 60-65 mph. In Wyoming, speed limit is 80 mph, I only got to that once or twice for passing, didn't like how that felt at all. In case someone askes, my new Goodyear Endurance "D" trailer tires have N, 87mph rating, I think the old trailer Marathone tires were only rated at 65 mph.

Good to know you made the trip OK and that the tire pressure helped some at least. It can only cure so much, but it is a free change.

Originally Posted by RRS2670

I have to also mention that the trip to Yellowstone was my first one with the over/under axle conversion. I wonder if that extra 4 or 5 inches of height would make much difference in trailer stability? I know you've done a few of those over/under conversions, have you noticed much difference in handling after doing them?

Hope all is well,
Russ

This topic comes up often about towing effects from doing an over/under axle conversion. This is what I have experienced (I have 2 campers of my own with flipped axles) and a somewhat generalization of other Sunline owners who have done it.

On the topic of, "pulling the camper with extra wind drag being higher" are there any effects? While the taller camper does add a level of more drag in theory, to date I myself have not felt it or others who have reported on it being any harder to pull. I would say, if your tow vehicle had good power and performance before the axle change, then odds are high you will not notice any difference. This seems to be what others have noted. I know not everyone posts about what happened to them, but I would say, if your TV had power issues before the axle change, it will still have the problem after the axle change. It seems the initial brick wall to the wind beyond the shape of the truck that creates the extra wind drag with an 8 ft wide camper is the bigger issue. Going 5" higher dose not seem to make it worse to the point you can put your finger quantifying a change due to increased height.

To the trailer stability of towing, meaning instability felt in the TV from gaining the 5" higher, this gets more involved as the WD hitch has to be adjusted to deal with the height change. And in doing this WD adjustment, the old setup may have found the sweet spot in the WD settings. Changing the hitch head location and having to deal with the spring bar adjustments, may shift the WD on the front and back of the truck. And those adjustments can affect what you feel in the truck. And then you throw in a truck change and a tire change and the combination of find the new sweet spot can be more complex.

As reported here on the Sunline forum, I do not recall large issues being reported with towing instability after the trailer axle change. Yes, they had to adjust the WD hitch and some members needed help with that area, but so far that variable worked out OK.

I have not yet, ever read or heard where someone reversed the axle flip back down low to get out of a handling problem. All the extra room to not drag the camper seemed to overcame any other issues.

Yes, let us know how your next trip goes. The learning never stops on towing setup's.

Thanks

John

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by mainah

Interesting. As a young buck I balanced tires with a bubble balancer and now with fancy electronic ones (I'm a tire balance freak) and frankly never had an issue. Yeah when you approach a pound and a half of tire weights it's time to think about what's wrong with this tire? Trailer wagging I have all ways fixed with weight distribution in the camper.

When I was a teenager (lets say a long time ago..) and biased tires was the way tires were, radials were not popular yet, I would work (volunteer ) at my step dads car repair garage after school some times. This was back in the days when independent repair shops were very common and did really good work. And I pumped gas for the customer, cleaned the windshield and checked the oil too, who does that now? I was taught how to change tires using a tire machine and a good bubble balancer. I still have the tire machine, my step brother got the wheel balancer and the box of weights when dad sold the business.

I can still hear my step dad tell me, if you have to add a ton of weights to get the tire to balance, the tire mounting it messed up. Unmount the tire, move it around and remount it, then balance it out. Remember wheels used to be mainly steel back then too. And sure enough, remounting the tire solved the problem, at least back in those days.

These current day low profile tires were only seen on race cars back then. Now, a large percentage of new cars and light truck all have them. I'm not sure exactly why the industry changed, the cost on 18",19" and 20" new car/light truck tires is an eye opener! Sticker shock for sure.

[RRS2670]

Hi John,
I my comment about the over/under was more a question about trailer stability. My Ram has ~400 hp, more power than the other 2 GM's I towed this trailer with, so no problems from a performance standpoint.

Yes, I had to go through and make Wt distribution adjustments with the height change. I played with this along with getting distribution weights on Cat scale. I just mentioned this because I hadn't really trailered any distance after the suspension upgrades but before the axle conversion, just wanted your thoughts. I didn't think it would make much difference.

Thanks for your feedback, I'll let you know if I think these tires help any.

Russ

[mainah]

Yes in the old day of bias tires I remember having to even flip the tire over if moving them around didn't work instead of pounding more weights on. I'll put a little trivia out there What are the little red and yellow dots on the tires? I didn't know until a tech from Michelin tires told me years ago.

[RRS2670]

Originally Posted by mainah

Yes in the old day of bias tires I remember having to even flip the tire over if moving them around didn't work instead of pounding more weights on. I'll put a little trivia out there What are the little red and yellow dots on the tires? I didn't know until a tech from Michelin tires told me years ago.

I knew about the dots from my motorcycle days, my problem is lately I always forget if the dot is even with the valve stem on rim, or 180 out. It's purpose is to place the heaviest side of the tire opposite the valve stem if I remember right.

When researching the Road Force balancer, I found a table with several manufacturers on it, mentioning that they use the dot or other marker as a reference to heavy spot on tire. Interestingly, Continental doesn't have any spot or marker reference, so I guess it's more labor of the guy doing the balancing if the tire is way off. I wonder how much weight the TPS adds to tire and affects balancing?

[mainah]

Yes if it has two dots one is the high spot when in doubt the red faces the valve stem the ideal it to compensate for the valve stem weight, years ago it didn't matter because the machines were not smart enough to know. Being a "show me" person I had to test it. never looked back it's true. When I was 15 my first job involved school buss tires! Yes clinchers rims used to put them under the lift to inflate them. Even remember long air hoses to blow the tire free from the rim!

[Tinstaafl]

Just for another data point, I did the axle flip on my '99 T1950, adjusted the hitch for the height difference (obviously), and was completely unable to detect any difference in how it towed.

No doubt you could measure a change with the appropriate instrumentation, but in practical terms... nada.

[maynardjw]

I tow a 2499 with my 14 Expedition and had huge wag problems with my Michelins. I have used Firestone Designation tires for 4 out of the last 5 sets of tires and love them. I got such a good deal on the Michelins I put them on and soon regretted it. I also have used Continental tires on my cars and absolutely hated them. They have great ratings but the tire quality goes downhill quickly once on the car. I really have never understood how and why they are so highly rated. I have removed and resold them from my last 3 cars I purchased.
I put the Designation II tires on last April and what a difference. I had vibration problems as well and brought it back 3 times and they finally used the Road Force balancer and they too found 3 tires were bad. My suggestion is always go to a shop that uses Hunter Road Force equipment. Not all have it. Some Firestone locations have it as does Goodyear, Sullivan Tire and many more. Roadforce equipment puts pressure on the tire to give actual on the road balancing which will give you a much better ride. So important when traveling long distance to get rid of any vibration. As you have seen regular balancing doesn't pick up a lot of the problems and I'm sure the tire manufacturers hate Road Force as they take many more tires back.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by RRS2670

I knew about the dots from my motorcycle days, my problem is lately I always forget if the dot is even with the valve stem on rim, or 180 out. It's purpose is to place the heaviest side of the tire opposite the valve stem if I remember right.

When researching the Road Force balancer, I found a table with several manufacturers on it, mentioning that they use the dot or other marker as a reference to heavy spot on tire. Interestingly, Continental doesn't have any spot or marker reference, so I guess it's more labor of the guy doing the balancing if the tire is way off. I wonder how much weight the TPS adds to tire and affects balancing?

Yes "dots" are used by tire manufacturer to improve ride on OE tires. It might be that Conti does not apply the dot to tires that are not OE so it is possible you are buying "trade" level tires. This is only a guess on my part.
I was discussing tire loading last week with the guy that runs the scales for RVSEF and he pointed out the tendency for TV trucks to be overloading one or both axles. An imbalance front to rear (change in percent) when you hook the trailer up could be contributing to the "wander" but probable not the vibration.
Given the problems with vibration with Conti you might consider a different brand tire.

[maynardjw]

Road force creates its own dot using lasers so looking for factory ones is not needed.

[Boots]

I read somewhere that OEM tires do not have as much thread depth as replacement tires of the same brand in order to make the ride feel more stable on a new vehicle in order to increase new buyer satisfaction.
So, apparently replacement tires with greater tread depth can make the tire feel a bit more squirmy until the tread wears down a bit to a depth more like what is found on OEM tires.
It sounded reasonable at the time I read it that tread depth could indeed have an affect on how stable the tire would feel on the road and could cause a squirmy feel.

If tread depth on tires does indeed vary between OEM and replacement, I don't know, but I offer it here as part of the conversation to perhaps get some comments or opinions from those that might have insight on this.