Tire Pressure

[WASP18]

When a tire reaches it's fifth year, we need to be concerned about dry rot. It will happen. It's an old tire having reached its life cycle and needs to be replaced.

[Russ]

my main concern now is that the highways are so crowded and the places to get off on a wide shoulder are not always available and/or especially safe. It is no fun sitting right next to busy lanes on traffic that are going by at over 70 mph. When I'm towing, especially through cities I often think...'man I hope we don't have a problem here'.

I hear you there. Murphy is a nasty character and his law states this will happen. You won't get a flat on a slow road with a nice pull out area to change the tire. After reading stories on here about blow outs and wheels flying off, I would rather invest in new tires every 5 years and not have to worry.

--Russ

[RobertB]

I lost the bearings on a rear tire on my trailer (two axles) - pretty much the same as loosing a tire.

Never noticed it until 30 miles later when I got home. Now I know why I was getting all those rude looks (as the ball bearings went their merry way).

[Baerkanu]

I had that happen also to a pickup I'd drive in Wyoming short distances. Moving down to Utah at about the 500 mile mark I had 3 tires give out in less than 100 miles ,

Sum

OK, how the heck did you manage to drive short distances in Wyoming???? Our own governor once said "Wyoming's a really small town with really long roads...."

Back on topic - I weighed our M after we loaded gear (nothing ridiculous, just normal gear, tools, clothes for a week, food) and it was about 4,900 lbs w/trailer - bearings were running about 115 degrees after extended highway runs, which isn't too bad, but I was nervous about being just past max weight. I've got almost 5,000 miles already on the Loadrite we got in April - 7,500 GVW, no worries, and any extra gear goes in the boat.

I was thinking about mounting an additional spare on the tongue (I tow with a diesel dually, 2.5" Class IV hitch, so tongue weight is essentially irrelevant) but haven't seen the need.

- Clay

[Crikey]

my main concern now is that the highways are so crowded and the places to get off on a wide shoulder are not always available and/or especially safe. It is no fun sitting right next to busy lanes on traffic that are going by at over 70 mph. When I'm towing, especially through cities I often think...'man I hope we don't have a problem here'.

I hear you there. Murphy is a nasty character and his law states this will happen. You won't get a flat on a slow road with a nice pull out area to change the tire. After reading stories on here about blow outs and wheels flying off, I would rather invest in new tires every 5 years and not have to worry.

--Russ

And Moore's law says the chances of that happening will double every two years!