Are comercial tires necessary on a camper?

[cruising_r32]

Hi guys,

I bought a 1985 transported camper a few months back, the steel wheels are rusty and the tires have lots of cracks in the side walls.

I've been to a local tire fitting center and asked about replacements, they told me I would need to use commercial tires as it is a van.

So now I am looking at a bill of 375euro to replace the five tires BUT there is no point in putting new tires onto shabby old wheels so I have been given a price of 175euro to have my wheels sand blasted and powered coated.

That's 550euro to have pretty much the same thing, so I was thinking about swapping the steel wheels to alloys as I know of a few Audi sets going for a good price including tires.

That leads me onto my question- do I have to use commercial tires on my high roof T25 camper or would normal car tires do the job just as well?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated,

Alan,

Dublin, Ireland.

[CovKid]

Camper - commercial tyres. You're heavy and they need to be right rating. I 'just' get away with it on my van but I'm very light. Don't fit car tyres to a camper. Your insurance company won't pay out if things go wrong and its a complex case - they start looking for things like that.

However.....

Fit them yourself and buy part worns if need be. Had someone show me how to fit tyres with a couple of big tyre levers and its dead easy. I bought four brand new ones from ebay then afterwards got em balanced - £99 for tyres and about £20 for balancing.

[cruising_r32]

Thanks for the reply, I've no problem sticking with commercial tires, I just wanted to check if I had to.

Would it be the same for the Audi alloys I was thinking about buying?
Designed for a car so not able for the weight of a camper?

I don't mind powered coating the steelies but just thought some alloys would freshen up the over all look of my camper.

[CovKid]

If you're tidy, plain black smoothrite can do wonders for steel wheels.

https://club8090.co.uk/forum/garage.php? ... ge_id=1836 I love that look but it doesn't suit everyone.

https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Ma ... _Syncro.29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Quite a bit there on wheels and tyres but lots of 80/90 members with non-stock setups, you'll get lots of thoughts on this I'm sure.

[pionte]

You dont necessarily need commercial tyres , but the tyres must be capable of taking the weight, a commercial tyre will be built to take more knocks, imagine the typical white van man bumping up onto curbs 30 times a day However most tyres will come in heavy duty spec that will carry more weight, Have a look here....
http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Quote from web site ......

The load index on a tyre is a numerical code associated with the maximum load the tyre can carry. These are generally valid for speed under 210km/h (130mph). Once you get above these speeds, the load-carrying capacity of the tyre decreases and you're in highly technical territory the likes of which I'm not going into on this page. (Mostly because I don't understand it).
The table below gives you most of the Load Index (LI) values you're likely to come across. For the sake of simplicity, if you know your car weighs 2 tons - 2000kg - then assume an even weight on each wheel. 4 wheels at 2000kg = 500kg per wheel. This is a load index of 84. The engineer in you should add 10% or more for safety's sake. For this example, I'd probably add 20% for a weight capacity of 600kg - a load index of 90. Generally speaking, the average car tyre is going to have a much higher load index than you'd ever need. It's better to have something that will fail at speeds and stress levels you physically can't achieve, than have something that will fail if you nudge over 60mph with a six pack in the trunk.


LI kg
90 600
91 615
92 630
93 650
94 670
95 690
96 710
97 730
98 750
99 775
100 800
101 825
102 850
103 875
104 900
105 925
106 950
107 975
108 1000



very interesting as it tell you exactly what the tyres are designed to cope with weight wise , I personally will fit tyres with a load index of 99 which is 775 kg per corner,

Tyres with the correct Load Index arent really any more expensive

[cruising_r32]

Covkid, I tried removing the rusty marks from the wheels with a drill and wire brush attachment but was making very little difference.

That is why I got the price for sand blasting and powered coating, I would have no problem painting/ spraying them if I thought I could get a good finish.

[Red Westie]

People talk about commercially rated tyres as if they are 'special' and somehow more expoensive than the equivelent car tyre...however a reasonal quality commercially rated 185R14C tyre is generally just the opposite and is usually cheaper.
For example..Uniroyal Rainmax 2 commerially rated at £44.70 each...and cheaper (under £35 at tyre for non descript)

http://www.camskill.co.uk/products.php? ... 0s96p60738" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Do you need commercially rated tyres? well no not really! as long as they are appropriately rated for the weight of the van so a load index rating of 95 and higher. (The last number ie: 185R14C 102Q)

185 is the width 18.5 centimetres
R is radial construction (they all are now)
14 is rim diameter (steel or ally)
C is commercially rated (normally 8 ply or above..how many construction layers it is made of)
102 is the load index rating taken off a chart: 850Kg per tyre
and Q which is the speed rating : 99mph

Martin

[elsid]

I thought it was to do with the ply rating of the tyre side walls. Car tyres are usually only 2 ply while van tyres are 6 or 8 ply. The same thing applies to caravans, they have to have to have van tyres with at least a 6 ply rating. When we bought our caravan the tyres were over 11 years old and had cracks on the side walls. I took it to a local tyre centre to have new tyres fitted and I was told they had to be van tyres. The spare was a brand new car tyre but the fitter said that although it had suffient load carrying capacity I shouldn't use it because it was only 2 ply rating and was therefore not suitable.
Sid

[cruising_r32]

pionte, that's some interesting information there, thank you.

I rather like the big commercial tires as they are probably soaking up a lot of the vibrations and bumps on the road but for the cost of replacing them on powered coated wheels I wanted to see what other options where open to me....

So if anyone has any suggestions as to what looks best on a T25 high roof camper- fire away, I'm all ears

[Red Westie]

Interesting comments...commercially rated tyres tend to be tougher, more rugged to cope with the abuse from white van man, a suitably rated tyre but not commercially rated 8 ply, may have a more plexible tyre wall and may not be as rugged under extreme conditions...that is not to say that it wouldn't cope, clearly if it is correctly rated it will cope with the weight but may not be suitable in the hands of a builder on a builders site.
However fine on your average camper driven on nice tarmac roads.
Martin

[cruising_r32]

I've just spent the last 30mins looking over camskill's stock

I counldn't find a car tire listed with a 99 rating in the size I wanted....
185/70/14 tire most only have a rating of 88
185/80/14 tire most only have a rating or 91 but one Toyo had a rating of 95
Even going to a 195/70/14 still only gave a rating of 91

But in the van listings, 185/75/14 or 185/80/14 all seem to have a rating or 102

So it seems that I will have to put a van tire onto my camper so I have a weight rating high enough to cope with the loads I will be carrying.

[Red Westie]

In those sizes....that's about the long and short of it.
On standard 14inch rims also look at 205/70R14 ....look for 97's
Martin

[pionte]

pionte, that's some interesting information there, thank you.

I rather like the big commercial tires as they are probably soaking up a lot of the vibrations and bumps on the road but for the cost of replacing them on powered coated wheels I wanted to see what other options where open to me....

So if anyone has any suggestions as to what looks best on a T25 high roof camper- fire away, I'm all ears

Have a look at this post....


https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=74154" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

nedkelly113 has powder coated his steel wheels and they look great




I have gone down the merc ML alloy route, I bought some of Ebay and have had them sand blasted and painted by a specialist metal painting company, it cost £30 per wheel, powder coating usually costs £60 ish ( probably more expensive down here in the South ! ) I will post some pics later.

Kevtherev has done the same ( I took my inspiration from him ) have a look here ....https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=74206" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


expect to pay around £100 for the Merc rims
£120 prep and paint
£230-£380 for decent rubber with the correct load index
£35 for wheel spacers from Brickworks to correct the offset
£50 ish for new longer studs and shinny new nuts ( with the correct shape seats to fit the wheels ) again from Brickwerks

total £600 ish..... quite a bit but half that will be for the new tyres that you need anyway .



P.S do you have a R32??

[CovKid]

As I said earlier, I don't run with commercial tyres at all but I'm driving a stripped-out Caravelle and don't have anywhere near the weight on board that you'd find in most campers like the roof, chipboard or MDF cupboards etc, the exception perhaps being the steel rear seat which I made especially to carry little uns. Most commercial vans are generally loaded up, hence all the need for commercial tyres. Any more and I definately would.

Having learnt how to put tyres on, thats exactly what I'll do next time once I find a suitable set. It saved me a considerable amount of money last time. I don't think we'll all agree on this but load rating is certainly the crucial bit. I deduced (in my case) that for a vehicle that is empty 99% of the time, car tyres would be fine and thats proved to be the case. I get better grip in the wet and it handles nicely. As for speed rating, well, like thats gonna be a factor in a 1.9.

Have a feeling this will be a long thread....

[1664]

I chuck on the recommended commercials - just in case of insurance claim etc