Wheel Rebalancing, Rotation, Brake Checks

[Tom and Jennifer Pierpan]

We've put 16,000 miles on our 26ft, 2004 BF.
In 40 years of taking care of cars, we've done front-end alignments, tire rebalancings, rotations and brake checks at the recommended intervals.
With our BF, we've done alignments each year, but have never had the wheels off the BF, so have never rebalanced the wheels, rotated them, or had the brakes checked.
What do others recommend in this regard?

[Steve W]

Tom & Jennifer. You asked so here is one reply. For our 2004 BFT, I have the tires rotated every 7,500 miles. During the rotation, I ask that the tires be checked closely for abnormal wear. In addition, I very closely monitor the tire pressure, checking before we go off on a venture, during, and before the BFT goes back into storage. Basically, what I do is no more than simple preventive maintenance. Steve W

[Tom and Jennifer Pierpan]

Steve, thanks for the reply. One further question to clarify. What rotation sequence do you have the garage use?

[Steve W]

The following rotation was recommended by the garage and seems to work well. Front tires to inside duals/Inside duals to outside duals/Outside duals to Front. I may be a little picky, but I stand around and watch, well out of the way, while the rotation is being done just to make sure that the wheel covers don't take a beating and that the metal air inflation tubes for the inside/outside duals are properly put back in place. I understand that some garages will not let customers into the work areas due to insurance restrictions, but that is not the case with the tire shop I use. Hope this helps.

[Brent]

As long as tires show no wear, I do not ever rotate the rear tires, and don't switch the front too often.

It has to be aligned for this to work.

After several units, experience and much advice (often to the contrary) what works for me is if the tires are wearing evenly and the unit is aligned - I don't mess with it. This way I don't have issues with the valve extenders, etc.

As far as other maintenance when the unit is on a rack I inspect all I can see.

I check air pressure every morning on the road.

[Mel Wilbur]

As I have stated on other maintenance topics we all have our own reasons for doing certain things. In this case I follow the same rule as Brent and as long as my front tires are wearing correctly I do not believe that rotating the tires are necessary and would in the case of the dual rear wheels may not be advantageous due to the wear pattern of the inside vs outside tires (check this in the Ford owners manual). If we follow the general rule we should replace all six tires in 5-7 years regardless of how the tread looks due to general deterioration.

As for balancing I have used for many years a product (EQUAL) that is placed inside the tires which keeps them balanced at all times. In simple terms it looks and feels much like fine sand and has been used in the trucking industry for many years.

Maybe I have been just plain lucky but in 36 years of motorhoming with too many coaches and approximately 600m miles we have never had a tire failure.

Based on our problem at 32m miles you may consider having the brake slides (also refered to as rails) checked and lubricated at 30m miles. If one of the calipers freeze up it could get costly.