RV Tire Replacement [When Should You Change RV Tires?]
Driving an RV feels amazing. The freedom, the open road, and the memories shared with family and friends, but blowing a tire on your way home, is a sure-fire way to ruin what could have been the perfect day.
Not only is a blowout dangerous, it can also result in a costly RV repair.
Sometimes there’s nothing you can do to avoid it; there’s broken glass on the road, or a sharp, unforeseen rock appears at the last second and catches one of your tires off guard; it happens.
That said, for the most part, you can avoid any trouble with your RV tires by simply knowing when it’s time to change them.
This article will explain when you should change an RV tire and the warning signs to look out for.
How Old are Your RV Tires?
You might be surprised to find out that most people don’t actually know how old their tires are. If you purchase a used RV, then the tires could be very old indeed. Even on new RVs, the tires installed may have been sitting around for years before they were installed.
In any event, you need to know how old your tires are because RV tires have a life expectancy of up to about eight years; after that time, the tires are not as safe or reliable as they used to be, and if the tires are much older than that it’s not a matter of if but when the tire gives out;
You may get lucky and be in a safe spot when the tire fails, but for some reason, it often seems to happen right when you’re in the middle of nowhere with somewhere to be.
So, how can you tell how old your RV tires are?
That’s a great question. The answer is that it’s actually very easy to tell exactly when your RV tires were manufactured.
Date Codes
RV tires are not like regular tires that would go on a car or truck. Rather, RV tires are much larger, heavier, and more expensive to repair on the side of the road. For those reasons, all modern RV tires are required to state their date of manufacture; this is what’s known as a “date code” on the tire.
Date codes are displayed as a four-digit numerical code, with the first two numbers representing the week that the tire was made and the last two digits indicating the year. So, a tire that has a date code of 1418 would have been manufactured between April 5-11 of 2018.
If the date codes on your RV are older than the recommended eight years, then it’s definitely a good idea to change your tires now before it’s too late and you end up in a sticky situation.
Also, keep in mind that trailer tires only last maybe half as long as motorhome tires, which means that they need to be changed more often.
When a tire gives out, and you’re on the road, you can lose steering function and end up in a dangerous situation that could have been avoided if you had only been aware of the date code and changed the tire.
For more information and to see an example of what a date code looks like, as well as where to find one on an RV tire, be sure to check out this short video made by the RV experts at Leisure Coachworks. The video explains even more about date codes and what to look out for when considering an RV tire replacement.
