Caravan tyres

Definitely go to a tyre depot rather than a dealer and just take the wheels if you can.

That is a very short life for yours. There’s no target but mostly they’re good for 5 years or so. However, if they’re cracked, there’s nothing else you can do. 

If I had bought a caravan new in 2016 and tyres were now cracking at two years old I would expect the dealer to replace at his cost.

I had Max Miler tyres on a previous caravan and one of those tyres cracked in under two years. I think the reason was hitting a kerb in a service station. 

I have used E-Tyres in recent years for caravan,motorhome and car tyres. They have quite an informative page on their website about tyres suitable for caravan. Even if you don't buy from them it will give you an idea of what is available in your size. 

David

Hi EasyT I think if you were in that situation the dealer would not be very forthcoming because tyres do not come under the warranty,(even though it would be the decent thing to do).

The best way to approach that situation would be to purchase two more tyres from a local tyre dealer and ask them to send the cracked tyres back to the tyre manufacturer under complaint and get a full report ,and hopefully a credit for the cracked tyres.I suspect the result would be date related because the tyres could have been 2or3 yrs old before the caravan was sold .

Brian & Jo

The tyres are made by Durun I have never heard of them before . I just wonder if Swift put these on all their vans & if anyone else has had the same problem. As it happens the outside tyre is worse than the inside one so it's not down to kerbing. 

Durun are a budget tyre manufactured in China.Obviously the quality is not the same as a branded tyre but the cost should reflect that.They are perfectly ok to fit as long as the load rating is correct but there is a good chance they will start to show signs of fatigue after maybe 3/4 yrs.

just as a footnote the government is trying to stop the importation of Chinese commercial tyre,and so the prices have been hiked up in the last 4 months or so .

Wether it will start to happen with car and light commercial tyres who knows I personally think not .I know in the last 3/4 yrs Pirelli have built a massive plant in China so if it was gonna happen you would assume that they wouldn’t have invested that sort of money,But who knows.

Brian & Jo

I put wheel covers on my (original) tyres at all times- even on site— well on one anyway as the awning covers the other. Ultra violet light is the killer of caravans with an ally in rain! My tyres are 7 yrs old and are in perfect condition- no cracks and no wall damage. I defy anyone to find any cracks however small. The service engineer at the last service mentioned the 7 year change but then admitted that the tyres were in excellent condition! The suns heat and light attacks tyres so keep it off- use covers- they pay you back 20 fold! 

I've been looking at this quite a bit recently because we had our caravan serviced by the mobile engineer from our dealer at the storage site a few weeks ago.  Both tyres were cracked and needed replacing.  Our caravan is a Swift Challenger Se 480, 2015 model.  We bought it from our dealer in 2016 in a virtually unused state, as the original owner had downsized, then realised the van didn't suit him.  Anyway, I digress.  Apparently because the manufacturers bulk buy tyres, they can already be over a year old by the time they're fitted to a new caravan.  Even if they're not fitted, they can still deteriorate, and can be expected to last between 3-5 years depending on the conditions they're exposed to.  I arranged for a local tyre fitting firm (as recommended by the service engineer) to do mobile fitting at our storage site.  The tyres had to be ordered 48 hours in advance, but were fitted within a few hours.  The only issue was the Tyron bands fitted by the original owner of the caravan.  As a result, the van had to be left on axle stands whilst the wheels were taken back to the workshop for the tyres to be fitted.  All was done with no problems.

That’s why it pays to check the date code on tyres, BG, and even if you cover them, as Merve does, the cords can still deteriorate and there’s no way of checking that.

Indeed when I took my van in for a service the check in engineer actually looked at the date code and it was 2012 - the van was bought 2013, so both getting changed.