Anyone able to tell me what to expect on tire prices (mounted and out the door) on michelin 235/80R's? is there a national chain where I could get them in one of several cities? How about batteries for both engine and coach;buy at same place and go for big ticket discount, or different animal? thanks,

quote:

Originally posted by stringmann:
Anyone able to tell me what to expect on tire prices (mounted and out the door) on michelin 235/80R's? is there a national chain where I could get them in one of several cities? How about batteries for both engine and coach;buy at same place and go for big ticket discount, or different animal? thanks,

what wheel size?
Nick

I am a notorious cheap skate, but I won't chintz on tires. If your battery goes south, you can get on the cell phone and solve the problem. If your cheap gas screws up your engine, you can get on your phone again. If your left rear tire decides to take a nap on I 485 around Atlanta, that could well be your final resting place. Check around for tire ratings and history. Check around for price on batteries.

tire size 225 x 6.75 I think

check tirerack.com, they got all kinds and are national. for batteries I had good luck at the Tractor supply (chain store) but some people get all at Sams Club.

Ditto for Tirerack.com

I've bought my MH and car tires from them. You can look up local participating installers and have them drop-shipped to them. The site shows exactly what they will charge. For me, about two days UPS. Tire prices are a tad lower, but s&h brings them up to par with other local outlets.

3 sets that way so far & no complaints from me. Even if you don't order from them, their site is a great source of info, incl. customer reviews.

quote:

Originally posted by stringmann:
tire size 225 x 6.75 I think

That's completely different than the 235/80's you mentioned in the original post. Make sure you know what size you need! It's printed right on the sidewall of the tire. There's also 1 more number in the sequence, probably R16 in your case indicating 16" wheels.

I'll vote again for Tirerack.com if for nothing else than to read the reviews. Most major brand tires will review fine, you might want to avoid Chinese-made but I have Toyo's on mine and they have performed just fine. I too have LT (light truck) 16" tires... I think some Toyo's had problems in the larger 22.5" sizes some years back.

Batteries are a different animal. I mean there are "tire and battery" stores and maybe you can get a discount buying both together... but there's no need to buy them simultaneously. Are you needed an engine (chassis) battery, a house battery, or both?

Tire prices are all over the map, but my most recent purchases (for the race car trailer) were from www.discounttiredirect.com.

I had to mount and balance them myself, of course.

Same for battery prices. Every instance is different. I ended up buying my Trojan GC batts from a golf cart shop. They were just a coupla blocks from the Trojan distributor for the area, (where he got the batteries) but cheaper.

For my cranking batteries of standard automotive size, I buy from whoever has the best warranty at the moment. Autozone last time. But Costco is pretty good, too.

This is all helpful; the sizes were scrawled on a note so I will have to verify. I was looking for "discount tire is usually good", or "sams club", or "always avoid such and such", etc. I also figured the tires and batteries were different enough animals that different places would be in order; but I was thinking a few of you have picked up a barth that had sat and needed both tires and batts for the drive home; and I thought that might have happened in less than convenient locations. So thanks for the help.

Further thoughts on house batteries.

If you dry camp a lot and have the room, a pair of L16 batteries is the best for long day to day life and long service life. But they are not the best value in amp hours per dollar.

If you want to keep generator run time to a minimum, a larger battery bank will accept more amps in a shorter time, saving fuel, noise and stink. some of this will depend on the charger, of course.

Golf cart batteries are the best value in amp hours per dollar, owing to the competition in the market place.

On the other end, if you dry camp only long enough to eat a sandwich at noon, or overnight sans furnace, then a single 12 volt trolling motor battery is likely to be adequate.

It all depends on your usage.

We dry camp for up to three months at a time, and did it for years on a brace of T-125 GC batts. We now use a set of four, owing to heavy inverter usage.

Before you choose between Trojan and Costco or Sams, read what MWrench posted on his experience. My own take is if you are a heavy amp draw user, as with a big inverter, Trojan is the way to go. If you are a light current user, maybe not.

On starting batteries, since you have a diesel, buy the biggest and best.