Category: Camping Reviews

Goodyear New Tires

Almost three years and about 25K miles since we bought our travel trailer I finally had the “China Bomb” tires replaced. Trailer now has 4 brand new Goodyear Endurance HD tires.

I had heard so many horror stories about the chinese tires mounted on new Travel Trailers and 5th Wheel I was worried. I will say the older tires probably could have gone another 5K, but I didn’t want to chance it.

Twenty-five thousand miles on these tires is rare, but I pulled it off. Admittedly I rarely went above 65mph (100kph) and I made sure the weight of the trailer was kept below it’s max weight. Even so they started to show some wear, largely because they were a bit under-inflated.

Because these trailers are manufactured on a extreme cold weather state the tires are filled with nitrogen. South of the mason-dixon line good luck finding nitrogen to refill them. I know they say you can mix the air, but I didn’t want too. Now all 4 tires are filled with normal air.

I really need to talk about the process of getting these tires changed. I knew what I wanted and started calling RV places. All of them said they could order them, but it would take a month or more to get them replaced. Plus I wasn’t real thrilled with the price.

On a whim I called a local Discount Tire. The person I talked to said they only had 3 in stock and need to order one. It would take two days. Sure enough two days later(on a Saturday) they called back and said the tire was in. They gave me an appointment for the following Monday, which I had to change to Tuesday. We are now up to six days from order to install.

On the way to Discount Tire traffic was backing up further than normal. Apparently the Wake Forest Police and Wake County Sheriff’s had a big something happening. Rubbernecking was in progress. I called Discount Tire and they said that’s fine just come on in.

When I arrived one of the sales people told me where they wanted my truck and trailer and they said someone will be out shortly. Ten minutes later one of the tire changers pulling two car jacks went to the passenger side of the trailer and started jacking the trailer up. I looked into my driver side mirror and another person was setting up to jack the other side of my trailer up. Five minutes later all four tires were off the trailer. Less than 30 minutes later all new four tires were back on.

I was leaving the parking lot in less than an hour later at a price I found more than reasonable. A total of 6 days from the time I told the sales guy on the phone to order the tire to having all 4 installed. The RV places wouldn’t even order the tires will I showed up and they wouldn’t allow that for a month or more.

I would say with all the restrictions on RV camping everyone is getting their RVs worked on; however, it was like this before this pandemic.

On our road trip

This adventure was supposed to end at The Georgia Mountain Eggfest the end of May. Well 2020 had different plans; however, in two days (June 21st, 2020) we start our trek back home. We will be taking advantage of our membership with Boondocker’s Welcome. We will spend the night with three generous hosts in Arkansas, Tennessee and will be home by the 24th of June.

During our time on the road we learned quite a bit regarding life on the road. We have meet a few friendly folks and even some we can call friends. More on that coming.

Major thing we learned is to keep the camper clutter free and if it doesn’t come in and out of the truck bed easy enough we probably should rethink bringing it. Both of us bought some new toys along the way. The Laser Engraver probably should have been shipped back home.

We will be making some modifications to our Camper which will probably bump it’s name up to Wolfden 2.5.

So as quickly as possible the camper will be completely emptied.

The original couch in the trailer is about as comfortable as sitting on a rock. It’s a fold out bed, but we really don’t need it, so it’s being replaced with dual recliner loveseat.

The overhead cabinets are all going to get an added shelf, except the one that already has a shelf.

We bought a cheap 5 drawer storage bin that is super flimsy and the drawers all need to be removed to travel down the road. Going to rebuild the frame and better secure the drawers.

The pass-thru storage area under the bed seemed like a great idea when the trailer was bought, but it has become unruly. So I am going to divide it off into three compartments. One for the hoses and things that are needed on the left side of the trailer. One for the stuff needed on the right side of the trailer. The middle compartment will be used to store our craft supplies under the bed.

With the addition of the Loveseat recliners we will have an area along side of the couch that we will use to store winter items

I will be adding drawers to the two cabinets on either side of the bed for clothes that don’t normally get hung up.

Might redo the dining table to better accommodate Rita’s crafts and allow us to use it to eat.

One thing for sure we will definitely rethink what we bring with us the next time we venture out and yes there will be a next time. Those plans are already in the works.

Thank you all for sticking with us during these trying times. Hopefully things will get better for all of us soon.