Guest Denis Posted June 17, 2005 Share Posted June 17, 2005 When purchasing tyres for a Motorhome do you need to get "Commercial" tyres fitted or provided you order the correct sizing and speed ratings is that enough. Leading to the next question what is the difference between commercial tyres and standard tyres except the price? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PeteC Posted June 17, 2005 Share Posted June 17, 2005 I would say that you should fit commercial tyres. As an ex delivery van driver I have always used them The difference is that the van tyres are designed to take the laden weight of the vehicle and have stronger walls (8ply as opposed to 6 ply for cars) Some people recommend camping tyres but 1 These are not available for all sizes 2 Having read the info on the sides of some on the continent they are the same ply as the equivalent commercial ones They used to reccomend camper tyres for caravans; they take standard car tyre sizes. The camper versions are 8 instead of 6 ply. and thus more suitable (they say) fro caravans, as they spend more time stationary, thus requiring stronger side walls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest David Powell Posted June 17, 2005 Share Posted June 17, 2005 Hi Dennis...Click:- SEARCH. And enter Keyword:- Tyres, and you will find so much information about motor home tyres from dozens of owners, that within an hour or so you will be very knowledgeable, or so confused you will pack it all in and buy a bike. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Derek Uzzell Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 Denis: As you say, when obtaining replacement tyres for any vehicle, they will obviously need to be of an appropriate size. A tyre's speed rating for, say a Ferrari supercar, will be critical but, for a motorhome, it's a tyre's load-index (load-carrying-capacity indicator) that's far more important. It's common for people to refer to tyres carrying a "C" letter (eg. 215/75 R16 C) as "commercial". According to Michelin (and I guess they should know), their company initiated the use of the "C" many years ago to indicate a tyre's suitability for light trucks/delivery vans called "Camionettes" in France. (I believe tyres suitable for similar "light truck" applications may be marketed in the USA marked "LT".) The vast majority of Eurozone-manufactured motorcaravans are based on light truck/van chassis and these motorhomes will consequently need 'C-marked' tyres. If by "standard tyres" you mean "non C-marked", then (on a like-for-like size basis) you are talking about tyres only suitable for vehicles like cars, MPVs or ultra-light delivery-vans. Example A - the Michelin 195/70 R15 97S Reinf Agilis 41 tyre. This is a 'non C-marked' 4-ply-rated (4PR) tyre with a load-index of 97 (730kg maximum load per tyre) and a speed-rating of S (maximum 180kmh). It would be suitable for vehicles like VW's 1990s Caravelle MPV (but only certain versions) or the very lightest swb Fiat Ducato panel vans. Example B - Michelin's 195/70 R15 C 104R Agilis 81 tyre. This is a 'C-marked' 8-ply-rated (8PR) tyre with a load-index of 104 (900kg maximum load per tyre) and a speed-rating of R (maximum 170kmh). Although the same size as Example A, this is a quite different (and, understandably, more expensive) beast suitable for vehicles like certain lwb Mercedes Sprinter panel vans or motorhomes based on certain lwb Fiat Ducato chassis-cabs. You could fit the Example B Agilis 81 tyre on Example A vehicles: the ride would suffer but it would be safe enough. Conversely, if you fitted Example A Agilis 41 tyres to the heavier, greater load-capacity, Example B vehicles, the result would be predictable and quite possibly disastrous. I've mentioned "ply rating" above. This is a term widely used in the tyre business to describe (very roughly) the load-carrying capacity of a tyre. It can lead to confusion as the term goes back to cross-ply tyre days when the more 'layers' (plies) in a tyre the more load it could normally carry. Nowadays, with radial tyres being the norm, ply-rating is an anachronism as it has no direct relationship to this type of tyre-construction. (If you check the construction details on a motorhome tyre's sidewall and count the number of plies, you'll find 8PR tyres usually have 7 plies.) Best to forget the mysteries of ply-rating and use the load-index figure as an accurate guide to a tyre's carrying capacity. Where "camping" tyres for motorhomes are concerned, Michelin say their XC Camping tyre is an 8PR-marked tyre with extra (unspecified) carrying-capacity equivalent to that of a similar-sized 10PR tyre. As far as I'm aware, this 'overload friendly' feature makes XC Camping unique and opens an unpleasant can of worms when it comes to selecting replacement tyres for a motorhome already fitted with XC Camping. (A forum SEARCH on "XC Camping" (omitting the quotes)will reveal the 1000s of words so far written about this tyre.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest David Powell Posted June 20, 2005 Share Posted June 20, 2005 If "FORMULA ONE" can't the proper Michelin tyres what chance have we got of getting XC Camping ??? What ever has happened to the good old reliable Michelin we have known for so many years ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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