Should I jack up my RV?

I see this question come up each year when some people are parking their RV for the Winter. There is a quick and simple answer and a more involved answer,

Quick Answer:
I do not jack up my Class-C RV over the winter but I do inflate the tires to 80 psi (the pressure on the tire sidewall). I do cover the tires with white covers over the winter (and whenever I camp at a location for more than 1 day).

There are other things you can do such as keeping the tires out of contact with wet sand and dirt. I covered this with pictures in my post on “Winterizing” 

More involved answer:
Jacking up the RV and removing the tire is one of those things that in a perfect world would be easy to do but in reality it isn't as many RVs don't have good jacking points or are so heavy you need very HD jacks so it may just not be safe to do..
I do understand the theoretical damage done from long term parking in one spot but again theory and reality clash. Lots of actions can theoretically prevent microscopic problems but if you extend the life of a tire by 1 month if you were to jack it up every time you were planning to park for more than 3 months, would it be worth the effort? Probably not.

There are actions that are easy to do and relatively inexpensive that can provide real "bang for the buck". I have covered these in various posts on my blog but will touch the big ones here.

1. Your actual static load should not exceed 85% of the max load capacity on any individual tire for the inflation you run..
2. You need to weigh and learn the actual load, when fully loaded and not simply take the total axle load and divide by the number of tires. You will NOT get the correct tire load by doing the simple division. You can download a worksheet on how to do the math HERE Or HERE

3. Get a TPMS so you will get a warning when (not if) you start to loose air due to puncture or leaking valve
4. Cover your tires with WHITE tire covers if they will be in the sun for better part of the day. A couple of hours in full sun does about same damage as a full day in the shade in Phoenix.
5. Replace the snap-in valves or rubber parts of your bolt in tire valves whenever you buy a new tire.
6. Get and use a digital hand held gauge at least once a month, even if you have a TPMS. You will probably be adding 1 to 3 psi each month anyway to maintain the tire inflation. This will also serve as a check on the TPMS.
7 NEVER drive on a tire that has lost 20% or more of its air. Structural damage will be done. Such damage is cumulative and this damage does not repair itself. (See post on Potato Salad)

8 Do not believe everything you read on RV Forums. Ask the poster for their actual training in failed tire analysis. Simply having owned tires from company XYZ does not make that person a knowledgeable source.
9. If you have a multi axle trailer your cold inflation should be the inflation on the tire sidewall

10 You might put on your To-Do list to read the posts in my blog (including the ones where I later point out my errors), then you could subscribe so you get a notice when I do a new post. I do about 3 a month so you will not be overloaded.
11.If you have a multi-axle trailer, learn how to do a rotating tire inspection and do your tires at least once a year. Watch this VIDEO  read the background in this POST to see what a failed tire looks like before it comes apart.

I read it on the Internet

With apologies to the "French Model" guy in the TV advertisement, I want to talk about the reliability of tire related information as seen in many RV forums.

 I subscribe to or monitor about 10 different RV forums. I know there are more but I do have other things to do than just read RV forum posts.

 Many times I use the "search" function to look for threads that are about tires. It appears to me that a significant percentage of the people asking questions, have not made an effort to seek out answers already posted before they ask a question. Too often what follows are answers from other RV owners who clearly do not have a good engineering background on the topic of tires. I would like to post a few examples and point out the problems I see in both the question and answers provided by others. 

An owner said “I have a 1992 Ford Four Winds motor home. 29 feet, I think. What kind of air pressure would I run in the tires. I have 60-70 but have read where some run around 100. Please help me decide".

Well first off the poster of the question left of much important information out of his post. What was his current tire size or the original tire size, including Load Range and what are the actual loads on the individual tires.

Clearly he had not noticed in numerous other threads that there is no “rule of thumb” for providing the proper inflation other than following the vehicle tire placard information. I would not be surprised to learn that this owner doesn’t even know he has a certification sticker.

What followed were 4 posts telling him the proper inflation for a motorhome, is a function of the real load and there are too many variables such as model, kind & size of tires to provide an answer. Another person replied that he should read other posts about tires and review the tire mfg “Load Charts”. Another asked for the tire loading but also mentioned the need to know the tire age by reading the DOT serial. Finally a more knowledgeable person suggested the tires need to be checked for sidewall cracking and pointed out the tire “birth date” is part of the DOT serial.

As of a week later the OP has not replied with any of the requested information. I think you can see that if he had made a little effort and read a few posts, or my blog :-) he would have been able to learn the answer to his question right off.

In another forum a person posted complaint about “blowout”.  Here we see the picture he posted.

 In this close-up you can see the tread on the right side is much more worn than on the left side.

 This is evidence of the detachment being in the tire for many hundreds of miles.

This thread has over 20 posts with lots of complaints about junk tires etc but not one properly identified that the subject tire did not have a blowout as it still held air. At that point I jumped in and provided a number of pictures of other tires showing the wear was not due to brake lock-up and the tire did not have a “blowout” but had a belt detachment and that if the tire had been more thoroughly inspected the failure and RV damage could have been avoided.

I suggested that if you have an RV, especially a multi axle trailer, an in the air rotation to look for tread wobble is something I would suggest at least once a year starting at year three.

This video  shows what a bad tire can look like.

Bottom Line.

If you have a question First spend a little time and see if the question has already been asked. Second, was the answer based on a lot of complaining and ranting or was the answer based on facts with pictures, links and hard data.

Remember that just because you read it on the Internet doesn't mean the information is correct.

Four new RV tire videos

These four videos were just released by Goodyear.
The info in these videos is good to know and follow.

Tim, the guy in the video, and I go way back to the late 70's when we were both working on racing tires. I was at a different company :-)

Even though this information is posted by Goodyear I strongly suggest you follow the advice given as sound technical advice is good to follow no matter who is the messenger.