holly cow ...............again sorry for the typing

i did not intend to to stir up a fuss. anyway as i read Steve's letter i audibly gasped when he said he sold it for 13.5 k after all that work . i have my breath back and doing a little thinking i realize i will be facing the same fate .

when our kids pack us away to a nursing home they will sell our real Persian oriental rugs for 500 each and my garage full of tools for a grand . so what i guess the government will just xxxxxxx it away anyway .

we love this thing so far ,

we will see after out first adventure , should be heading south end of next week . going to west coast of Florida and will end up in middle of march at the FMCA rally in Georgia if anyone is there we plan to put out a sandwich board that says " NEWBIES ADVICE WELCOME "

again thank to everyone for the encouragement and advise , still need someone to teach my wife to clean fish ( or maybe the problem will be , i may need someone to teach me to catch them )

thank you folks

Didn't mean to scare you Jack. I could have probably held out for more but I was ready to move on and the buyer was someone I believed would apreciate the old coach. He continued the upgrades and is happy with it.

The old coach mantra says, "you buy it for 10K, put 10K into it, be lucky to sell it for 10K."

Point is, you do it for your own satisfaction, not as an investment. (Recall I did run that coach over 45,000 miles.) The used RV market has never been good for sellers. One of the biggest problems is that banks will not finance RVs over ten years old, and few people have a ton of cash to drop on a coach regardless of what it is really worth.

Do what you want to on your coach, and above all, enjoy it!

When you get to Fla, let us know. We are just east of Port Charlotte, easy distance to Tampa, Ft Meyers and points inland.

Over the years, Tere and I have bought and sold a lot of rvs. The life style as advertised in magazines and tv, is compelling and for some works well. Others give it up after just a few seasons. And then there's people like us that just like to work on them. Tere still does but at 83, I'm more of a spectator. We've owned five Barth's. Sold four of the five,probably broke even on three of them, and spent $30K more than we sold the other one for. I could second guess our decisions, knowing we could have a nice condo in Naples for what we've put in motor homes, but what's the point? Tere loves working on our 89 Regal and it's probably the best Barth we've ever had. Would I do it all over again, knowing what I know now? Hell no--just like a lot of other things that I wouldn't do again or even the first time for that matter. Wisdom is wasted on the old.
Jim

BTW, there were a couple of SOBs that we made money on, mostly because we bought them right, put sweat equity rather than real money in them, and sold them right.

Hi Barth people

Us newbies to Barth and RVing are at the FMCA rally in Georgia right now and meeting other RVers

I think we may have the oldest RV here , everything else is 40 foot and less than 10 years old and financed Not exactly us anyway it is interesting At the seminars they were trying to tell me the new tires ( 18 months old stored inside ) from Vietnam are going to blow out and kill me
They hand 1000 miles on them
I check tire temperature at each stop. All fine all uniform
Any comment from anyone If I am going to take this on 1000 mile trips should I at least put Michlen on the front

???


They say I need a sway control stabilizer on the front axle. ??

Comment ??

I have Thailand made tires on the back of Nose and Continental on the front, that were made in the far east too, I think. I guess it is mostly what one feels good about. Perhaps when these get along in age, I might change them a little earlier than normal. My 81 p30 has a steering stabilizer surprised if yours does not have one too.

Had a set of 130 MPH tires on my Miata made in the far east, took them up to 130mph a few times, Miata was redlined, don't tell the cops! They were fine but did not wear well only got about 30k out of them. My son in-law borrowed the car for a year and put a set of Goodyear Eagles on it, I do not care for the ride as much but they now have about 70k on them and still look good, they are about 10 years old now and no cracks but I am not willing to take them up to 130mph , not sure the Miata can do that now anyway, 150k on it, but last summer I did do 100mph couple of times, so they are a better tire I believe. They did cost about 3 times the other tires though.

I put a heavy duty Hellwig antisway bar on the front of my 86. The OEM antisway bar was much lighter, the Hellwig is about twice as big. I forgot to mention that earlier. It was a noticeable improvement and I would definitely recomend that. It cut down the wander in cross winds to a minimum. Easy to install and effective.

As for tires, all tires sold in the US must be DOT approved. Many of the "US name brand" tires are actually produced overseas. A few years back, Michelin had numerous failures of their RV tire lines. They kept it rather quiet. Considering the price of their tires they should have replaced them all outright.

I had expensive Goodyear tires on the front of my 86. Before they wore out, they went out of round. Caused a front end wobble.

I replaced them with Chinese tires at half the cost. No problems whatsoever. I currently have Chinese tires on my Monarch.

I buy all my tires from a full service tire store in town. They sell everything from wheelbarrow tires to semi truck tires. They sell to several commercial fleets in our area. When I balked at the Chinese tires, they told me those were their biggest selling commercial tires and they have not had one failure in all the ones they have sold.

Number one problem is overheating due to overloading or underinflation or both. If they are kept properly inflated and loaded properly you should have no problems.

Considering that most RV tires will never wear out, ie they will get too old before they get too many miles, there is no sense in spending extra for long mileage tires. I can buy two sets of Chinese for the price of one set of Michelins....

There are many opinions on the age lifetime of RV tires. Some say 7 years, some say 10 is OK. I think it depends on their use and storage conditions. I have seen tires that spent every winter buried in snow. Some seem to last forever. Other tires sit in the Florida sun at 90+ degrees exposed to UV and atmospheric ozone. They look rough in a few years.

Personally, I keep my tires well inflated and out of the sun. I will run mine for at least 7 years.

If you want tire advice who would you go to, commercial operators who run hundreds of thousands of miles a year and need to be cost effective, or people who buy outrageously expensive coaches and tires and run them a few thousand miles a year? Just sayin'.

Enjoy your tires and your coach.

Thanks.
Sounds like sound advise I will look at the UPS truck tires next week

It looks like it has same sized tires
I am keeping this thing indoors when not in use
Got the correct tied pressure now but I am going to cross check my gage against a friends gage at a tire shop when I get back

Thanks

Good idea. Let us know what they are running! Keep in mind they may get fleet discounts though.

Best way to determine proper pressure is from the tire mfr load tables and actual weight of the coach. Barth factory recommended pressures were a bit low for my 86. They wanted a bit softer ride but were calling for 65 psi. Using actual weight and tire load tables I was more comfortable with 80 psi.

I run Toyo on the front and Sumi Tomo on the rear. Both are considered high end Japanese tires and are used a lot by truckers. I run 85 pounds all the way around, although like Steve said, my Barth plate says 65. Numerous truck and tire people have told me 65 is way too low for modern 19.5s. Those people telling you to run expensive tires are probably the same ones that paid 185G for a Flatwood that will be junk in 10 years.

Thanks for the info

I got this weighed. 6000 on front axle , 8400 on rear

I put 105 in all the way around was 85. Do not know if that is better but in my imagination it steers better on highway and tire temp is down , but not enough miles and checks to tell the difference . When we get back home I am going to recheck for the third time wear and play in all the front end components ,found zero before. And then take it to a truck frame and alinement shop with the original specs. in hand

All
The vendors at the FMCA of course say put a steering stabilizer on but I would like to to be. To the ORIGINAL specs first

I think tire pressure specs from Barth may have been for bias. Ply tires , not radials and for sure radials are designed to bend side to side more than bias
, so do original PSI specs apply ???? I think not I do not think they are equal

The stock steel rims on my 85 Regal were stamped "95 psi maximum pressure". Most 19.5-8 tires are rated 105 or 110 max. When I got new tires the tire guys put 105 in them. Based on the rim limits and tire load tables I reduced them to 80-85. I would stay at or below 95 just to be sure if you are using stock rims.

Not sure why Barth called for less but I did not feel safe running them underinflated. They will heat up more.

When in doubt running more pressure is always better than too little.

Here is info on the sway bar I used. Big improvement over stock.

https://www.barthmobile.com/eve...533965167#3533965167

There are tire pressure tables available to tell you what pressure to run your tires at based on the weight you have on that tire. That's what I follow. I talked to a Firestone engineer some years ago and he explained the rational. The tables are based on the size tire you have, and in some cases, the specific brand and style of tire. The pressures recommended are to make sure you are neither under or over inflated. I've had many tire shops put in the maximum pressure stated on the tire side wall. That is just plain wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim and Tere:
I've had many tire shops put in the maximum pressure stated on the tire side wall. That is just plain wrong.

They want to be sure they won't be underinflated and fail soon, even if they do leak a bit. Liability and insurance concerns. Same reason they routinely overtorque the lug nuts.

For years I always loosened the lug nuts and retorqued them so I would have a chance at removing them if I ever needed to change a tire.

Here is a load table from Bridgestone.