A'van Tyre Woes & Cures

About a week after I bought my van I was towing it along a very smooth freeway.  It had just been resurfaced and I looked in the side mirrors and I noticed the vans wheels were bouncing up and down quite vigorously. So when I got home I had a good look at the tyres all they had on them was the size, and two words, Classic and Royal. Never heard of them! I took the wheels up to Beaurepairs to get them balanced. Two weren't too bad, three big lumps of lead on each, but the third six big lumps of lead, three on each rim to balance it (not happy man).

I find out these tyres are Australian made and that all companies that make tyres in Australia during manufacture cannot balance them very well.  Eg. Ozzie made Dunlop's will need weights, but Japan made Dunlop's will not, or very small weights only. As the rims are pressed steel, I got them to take off the tyres and balance the rim. Nothing required! The rims were beautifully balanced.

The end result was I put Michelin tyres on and only a couple of very small weights per tyre were required. The royals cost about 80 dollars each the Michelins 110 dollars.

My cars have expensive high speed rated tyres on, so why should I tow a van with crappy rated tyres on. Most people would run their A'van at about 800 to 900 kgs gross weight, I would venture to suggest, and their van tyres should have a speed rating of at least 140kph plus and a load rating of at least 89 which equates to 560 kgs per tyre.

The vans GVM is 960 kgs never exceed and the two tyres could carry a max load of 1120kgs between them. The tyre rating means you can run the tyre at max load and max speed continuously safely, but for prudence sake about 3/4 of the load and 3/4 the speed is better. As the speed limit is 100 or 110kph that takes care of one. If your van is say 850kgs, then minus the ball weight of 80 kgs, gives 770kgs supported by the two tyres. 770 over 1120 is about 3/4, as well.  That takes care of the other.

Of course I have not mentioned tyre pressures or cross section, but that's another story!

(Writer's name withheld by request)