Flarpswitch
Salem, Oregon
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Joined: 04/14/2003
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I just realized that some of the new RVs we looked at do not have a spare tire. I have always had a spare and traveling in some remote areas in the western states I would feel uncomfortable without one. With no spare, you would be forced to call for road assistance. What if the tire can't be repaired right away? If an equivalent replacement can't be found, then what? A friend just repaced six tires on his Class A ($3,200)because one thing lead to another and so it was better to replace everything a bit sooner than scheduled. Really not a fair comparison as he had no spare option. After rotating the tires myself, I think I would be inclined to call for assistance first.
Steve
'09 Navion iQ
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j-d
Sunny Florida USA
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Joined: 09/04/2003
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Steve,
I hope your having time for this question means you're on the road with a perfect transmission!
Your Sprinter-based is a miracle of compactness. They all are. So IS there room for a tire or mounted spare? If you can carry one, I'll tell you my logic...
... with mounted spare, jack, blocks, wrench, etc. I can still call road service. I can furnish a wrench if theirs doesn't fit. I can recruit or accept other help. Or, I can change it myself. I like that.
In trying to decide, I'd like to know how common my specific tire is. I'd be much more inclined to carry one if it was a size nobody was likely to have on hand.
God Bless, jd
2003 Jayco Escapade 31A on 2002 Ford E450 V10 4R100
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tatest
Oklahoma Green Country
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With the weight of my wheels and tires, age and strength, I'm probably going to be calling for roadside assistance for a tire change, to change to my spare. Most roadside assistance contracts, that's all they will pay for.
I'm surprised your Navion doesn't have one, Winnebago is one of the companies that usually provided a spare as standard equipment for C's on other platforms.
Tom Test
Itasca Spirit 29B
2001 Ranger Edge
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pnichols
Santa Cruz Mountains
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Joined: 04/26/2005
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Quote:I'm probably going to be calling for roadside assistance for a tire change, to change to my spare
This assumes that one has some way of "calling" in any given situation - boondocks or otherwise.
Quote:I'm surprised your Navion doesn't have one, Winnebago is one of the companies that usually provided a spare as standard equipment for C's on other platforms.
X2, especially since ... don't some(?)/most(?)/many(?) roadside service plans require a serviceable spare be available at the site whenever flat tire service is required ... otherwise a long and/or extra-cost tow will be provided?
(I wouldn't buy a Class A/B/C RV without it including a nicely stored and easily accessible full-size spare on the same type rim as the running tires are on.)
Phil, 2005 E450 Itasca 324V Spirit
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Dusty R
Charlotte Michigan 48813
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Joined: 04/05/2003
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How many of you guys jacked up the rear axel on your mh? I did on ours to do some maintenance. I found that there is not room to lay on your side under there, and pumping the jack while laying on ones back or belly is not easy.
So I did some day dreaming and some inter net research.
I found a site that showed how to add a pressure gauge to a hydraulic jack. I figured where a gauge would work a remote hand hydraulic would work.
I found many hand pumps with 4' hoses on e-bay.
I put this all together and now can operate my jack without having to be laying under the mh.
also I can check the weight of the tongue of my loaded flat bet trailer.
Dusty
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j-d
Sunny Florida USA
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If you have a genset and carry an air compressor, there are air-over-hydraulic jacks that'd make lifting easier too. Your idea looks cleaner.
If the jack is a good deal bigger than the load calls for, jacking while reaching under becomes do-able. A four- or five-ton jack will lift any corner of a Class C, but a twelve-ton will do it with a bearable level of exertion.
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pnichols
Santa Cruz Mountains
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FWIW:
I carry a dual cylinder 12 ton bottle jack with a 3-piece very long handle. The dual lift feature means a cylinder within a cylinder so you get about a 19.5 inch or so of total height - to top of the 2nd cylinder (not counting even more final height using the screw on the top) - from a jack that starts out at only about 10 inches height. This gives plenty of headroom to compensate for the jack base sinking even though you may, and should, have planks under it on all surfaces because of the weight of a motorhome - not just dirt, gravel, or sand.
Lifting one rear corner of our Class C is equivalent to lifting an entire car off the ground to change a tire ... so you better be set up to do it reliably and safely in a variety of possible situations. I would only change a rear inner dual on our Class C if we could not get out on our cell phones to call our road service company ... if they would even come ... since we often go offroad with our Class C.
We also carry a full power 110V AC compressor with us which the generator will power, as my preference when offroad would be to keep airing up a leaking tire until we could get to a solid surface road for changing or calling out for road service. Our tires all have steel stems and we carry a couple of commercial grade digital readout air gauges.
We keep the spare tire inflated to the rear dual pressure - which is higher than the pressure required in the front tires.
Our tires are over stock size on overall diameter, which makes our Class C a bit higher and easier to crawl under.
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