Lazy Daze Owners' Group

Tire-Man Valve Life Expectancy

March 02, 2016, 05:07:32 pm

Yahoo Message Number: 159141

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We plan to buy new tires next month and would like to use the Tire-Man valves installed in the existing tires. These valves have somewhere around 40,000 miles on them. I called the Tire-Man shop and their advice was to replace all of them because of the mileage. We'd sure like the advice of this Forum before we buy new Tire-Man or the Borg valves. As always, thank you for guidance.

Ed & Margee Fort Worth

Re: Tire-Man Valve Life Expectancy

Reply #2 – March 02, 2016, 07:07:35 pm

Yahoo Message Number: 159145

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Ed, my LD has 94k and is on its fourth set of tires; the Tireman valves were installed a couple days after I picked it up in 2003. The valves have never been out of the wheels, and the rubber valve "washers" and rubber support grommet (for the inside dual) are still in good shape.

You might want to inspect the valves and rubber seats and grommets before making a decision to replace them. Obviously, if they're worn or loose or damaged, they should be replaced. Understand that the tires *can* be replaced without removing the valves from the wheels; some tire shops don't want to do this because it takes more care, i.e., no "slam, bang, whomp" stuff on the machine, when the old tires are removed and the new ones installed, but it can be done.

A few suggestions:

Remove the wheel covers before going to the tire shop; the tire guy usually has no clue about how to get them off and even less about how to get them on again.

Make sure that the tires you order are the same manufacturing dates; check the dates and the tire sizes (you might be surprised!) carefully. The window of "freshness" is up to you; I order matching date tires that are no more than two months from manufacture. Don't accept what the tire shop has sitting in the back room!

Have the tires installed with the date codes on the sidewalls facing to the outside.

As ever, YMMV.

Joan

Re: Tire-Man Valve Life Expectancy

Reply #4 – March 02, 2016, 09:31:47 pm

Yahoo Message Number: 159147

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I assume that you are really talking about the brass stems and not the valves that go into the stems. Did you talk with Chuck (The Tireman) or someone else that may be tending the store for him?

I had Chuck install stems in my 2005 LD when the coach was new. When I got rid of the LD it had gone 128K miles and 3 new sets of tires had been installed on it. The original stems were still in place and in good condition.

I asked Chuck about the stems a couple of times. He indicated that as long as the stems had not been damaged, they should be OK. He did suggest that the rubber sealing washers that are between the stem and the rim should be inspected and replaced if they were getting hard. Also these should be inspected if a particular tire seems to have a slow leak. It is true that the brass stems will age with time etc. and may become more brittle. However, this just means that greater care must be exercised when remounting tires, etc. Perhaps something has happened and Chuck now has a different opinion about replacing the stems.

The usual practice for most tire shops is to replace the existing stems when new tires are installed. However, such stems are normally all rubber. IMHO this practice does not extend to brass or steel stems.

Doug