It is now quite some time since I last posted about the dire importance of having your caravans wheels balanced.
Almost everyone who comes to La Tournerie has me asking them at sometime during their stop about their tyres and wheels and it is amazing how many of them have not bothered to get them balanced!
So many problems associated with caravans such as trim coming loose, damp ingress, floor delaminating, suspension damage etc. can all so often be blamed on out of balance wheels.
On a car wheel it is seldom necessary to fit large amounts of weights to their wheels to get them balanced and yet with caravans, I have often heard of as much as 190 gms being needed and 80 to 90 gms being quite common place.
Just think, at 60mph a 30gm out of balance wheel is almost akin to having a large bag of sugar attached to the pounding up and down onto the road surface with every single rotation of the wheel.
For the small amount it will cost you, please get them balanced and also for the relatively small amount extra over and above the cost of rubbish tyres, see if you can find a higher quality of tyre to fit as well.
Are you saying French tyre depots don't balance wheels as a matter of course when fitting new tyres? If you get tyres fitted at any of the major UK tyre retailers, balancing & fitting of new valves are always carried out as part of the fitting of new tyres, its not an 'optional' service.
Certainly its possible that if a caravan service workshop fits tyres as part of a service they may well not have a wheel balancer & the recommendation should always be to get new tyres fitted at a tyre depot.
I would think most UK visitors to your site would have had their tyres fitted in the UK not France, anyway.
Well Tentz; I know from personal experience as well as having spoken to countless people both at my site as well as on other forums of this type that there are a lot of tyre fitting businesses out there in the UK who ask: -
"We fit a lot of tyres for caravan dealers and most of them don't want the wheels balanced, so do you?"
As most of the UK manufacturers don't bother and as the National Caravan Council don't think that it is required then this appears to be the line that they take !!!!
All premium tyre manufacturers stress how vitally important it is to balance wheels/tyres as does also the NTDA (National Tyre Distributors Association) and all suspension and shock absorber manufacturers that I know of.
But you go and have a look around almost any caravan dealerships vans oin display and I bet you a pound to a penny that the vast majority of new or even second hand vans are not balanced.
I've always had mine balanced when fitting new tyres and like Tentz says it has never been an optional service. Even when I was knee high to a grasshopper I can remember going with my dad to get new tyres fitted and watching the balance machine spinning up (before the days of elf & saffy). Sure the manufacturers don't get them balanced but there again there is a lot of things that could be done to improve caravan manufacture. I seem to recall that the manufacturers by in the wheels with tyres already fitted (at least they used to with steel rims) and it would be a simple thing for them to include their requirement for balancing in the purchase spec. For what it would cost it would be a good selling point and show that they do care about some things.
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How do you define 'a tyre fitting buisness'? Any national retailer or mobile franchise like Etyres will balance wheels as a matter of course. It is unlikely that any of these would fail to balance caravan wheels.
Most likely it would be caravan service workshops fitting tyres during a service that would not balance wheels & the advice is always to get tyres fitted by a well known tyre retailer.
I don't see what you mean about caravan wheels needing more balance weights either. The wheels, steel or alloy are manufactured to same standard as car wheels & tyres used are just normal car or commercial van tyres.
Obviously common sense should dictate that budget tyres should not be fitted to a caravan that is likely to be towed long distances at motorway speeds.
I don't see what you mean about caravan wheels needing more balance weights either. The wheels, steel or alloy are manufactured to same standard as car wheels & tyres used are just normal car or commercial van tyres.
If you have Tyron Safety Bands fitted they certainly need nore balencing weights. On my caravan wheels there is a whole row of weights! Without the bands I can't see them needing more than say a car wheel.
Quote: Originally posted by Tentz on 30/11/2011
I don't see what you mean about caravan wheels needing more balance weights either. The wheels, steel or alloy are manufactured to same standard as car wheels & tyres used are just normal car or commercial van tyres.
Unfortunately and contrary to what most people would or could wildly believe, there are next to no regulations in place in the UK with regards to the manufacturing standards of the wheels fitted to caravans or trailers............ Unlike wheels fitted to cars & commercial vehicles.
If you were to make contact with any of the specialist wheel manufacturers who supply the automotive industry and ask their opinions of the wheels fitted to (UK manufactured caravans), their replies would not be allowed on these pages. Conversley any wheel fitted to a German manufactured caravan has to be TAG approved which is why there are so few designs/styles of wheels fitted to their vans and the cost of these wheels is very significantly higher than those fitted to UK vans.
As for the tyres, a very limited few of the UK caravan manufacturers are now starting to fit higher quality tyres, but there is still a great deal of rubbish being fitted, I am so sorry to say.
We have had two people stop with us at LT this year who have since purchased new caravans and at my suggestion as a final deal clincher, they both said "to seal the deal I want you to supply my new van with premium quality branded tyres and have the wheels balanced as well"............. I am very pleased to say that their supplying dealers in both cases agreed to do so and for no extra charge!
I would agree that new caravans should be fitted with premium tyres as are cars but it is incorrect to raise the old German 'vans great/UK caravan s**t chestnut. Both UK & German caravans use the same Al-Ko or BPW chassis supplied with same wheels/tyres & steel or alloy wheels. The substandard Maxmiler & Matador tyres that were prematurely splitting a few yrs ago were also fitted to German caravans.
As pointed out its wheels fitted with tyron bands that generally require a lot of weights & maybe the wheels you observed had these. I personally don't see the need for tyron bands provided mid range or premium tyres are fitted & replaced at 5 yrs but of course opinion varies.
The wheels on my 25yr old caravan are balanced ok with minimal weights....& I think you mean TUV approved.
Both UK & German caravans use the same Al-Ko or BPW chassis supplied with same wheels/tyres & steel or alloy wheels.
Yes & No Tentz.
Yes German vans are built on Al-Ko and BPW chassis but they are to different weights and specifications.
As for the wheels, they are very definitely to different build standards and quality and it is only the German vans that have to have all of their components tested to the rigorous TGV government controlled standards.
Someone I know who owns a 2011 Hobby which came on steel wheels has been trying to buy some alloys for it and the difference in cost between TGV stamped German wheels and the types as fitted to the UK vans is enormous.
In my working days I used to be a consultant to several of the Worlds leading tyre manufacturers and this resulted in me getting to know several of the wheel manufacturers and importers very well indeed. As stated in an earlier post, what the ones I have spoken to about the quality of UK caravan wheels is not at all complimentary, whereas they have nothing but praise for German van wheels.
A nephew of mine who has his own garage business fits and balances lots of tyres he told me that the majority of alloy wheels need more weight to balance them compared to steel wheels he also said that alloys on caravans offer no improvement over steel wheels and are just the fashion at the moment I have to agree.
Quote: Originally posted by phil76 on 01/12/2011
A nephew of mine who has his own garage business fits and balances lots of tyres he told me that the majority of alloy wheels need more weight to balance them compared to steel wheels he also said that alloys on caravans offer no improvement over steel wheels and are just the fashion at the moment I have to agree.
right in a fashion but they use more as different weights are used further in the wheel which causes more to be used to balance the wheel
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Topic: Tyre & Wheel Balancing
