Choosing Tires for Class B Vans

[booster]

What tires to get for our vans comes up a lot of times in questions on the this forum and many other places and there always a lot of different recommendations from users. Like all things handling related, I think this is a very subjective thing that even a side by side test of all tires by a bunch of us would still give a lot of different opinions. In real life we don't get that option, though, as any given van will not need very many tire replacement over their lifetime.

On our 2007 Roadtrek 190 Popular that we have had since new, we have had 4 different sets of tires so that is the only experience for us. The 4 are the original 245/75/16 Bridgestone Vsteel, 265/75/16 Michelin MS2 (old version), 265/75/16 Michelin Crossclimate 2, and our current 265/70/17 Michelin Defender LTX MS2 (new version). The old version MS2 were my favorite tire by far of the first 3 as they did everything well for us. The Bridgestone Vsteels were good tires, but did not stand out for me, The Michelin Agilis Crossclimates started out OK but handling quality faded quickly over time requiring repeatedly lowering the pressures to get directional stability. The current Michelin Defender LTX MS2 tires are doing very well so far, but too soon to tell how they will do as time and miles pile up. Our set to set is not a great comparision because of the tire size in both and width and diameter that has happened, though.

Many of our vans came with 245/75/16 load range E tires and while there are 60 different versions shown on Tire rack for that size and rating, the choices of many of users who liked the old style Michelin MS2 or later Dendender tires don't have those options any more, with Michelin moving the recommended tire for our vans to the Agilis Crossclimate. Michelin now has 4 tires in that size and load rating. They are the very old very stiff XPS Rib commercial tire, the also around a while LTX A/T2 on road all terrain tire, the Agilis Crossclimate which has been out a while and more reviews now, and the Agilis LTX that is a highway tire and pretty new. I have not followed other brands closely and the Michelins seem to have been the most popular over the years with lots of history on them.

Of the 4, the Ribs are harsh and very stiff riding so not chosen much any more from what I have seen. The A/T2s are a 4 rib slanted toward all terrain use, the Crossclimates are stated as highway tires but are 4 rib like all terrain tires, Agilis LTX are a 5 rib highway tires. The Agilis LTX tread is nearly identical to the current Defender LTX MS2 tires you can get in the 265/70/17 like we have now and those are very similar to old MS2 tires. They are currently rated 8th in the highway tire section of the Tire Rack survey ratings, so low for Michelin. Of interest is that that the Agilis Crossclimate 2 which does not show up in the list yet as it is too new and old Crossclimate that had a lot of reviews (and had been sliding down IIRC) has been removed. The A/T2 is in 8th spot about where it has been a while, I think.

If I look at the same chart for the 265/70/17 highway tires the Michelin Defender MS2 is in first place, so a big difference between them and all of the 245/75/16 Michelins where the Defenders aren't offered.

It may be possible that Michelin is moving to only addressing the commercial and all terrain markets in the 245/75/16 size because the biggest market for them in the past was pickups where most are used for daily driver use and use larger diameter wheels. Pickups and van sold for commercial markets primarily in the 2500hd and 3500 versions still use them so the extra reinforcing in them is desireble.

It certianly is possible that the 7 brands rated higher than the Michelin are now more suited to class Bs, but not certain IMO because many of the reviews are in vehicles that are much lighter and shorter than our vans.

To see the Tire Rack survey rating charts do a search for tires by size, then check the load range E filter on the list that comes up, pick a tire you might consider and click on it to open it's information page, scroll down to "see ratings chart for all tires in this category" and click the box. You can also read a bunch of the reviews themselves to see what vehicles the review is for which can be useful.

Concerning the loss of handling over time with the Agilis Crossclimate tires we had and didn't like by the time we hit 3 years and 10K miles, I had started wondering during that time if the 4 rib design could be a factor in it because there was no center rib on 4 rib tires. I had looked around in the past and not found much infomation except that highway tires were almost all 5 rib and all terrain were almost all 4 rib.

This morning I stumbled on an article that I found when I was looking for directional stability difference with directional and non directional tread patterns. It is very long, but well written, in non techy terminology, and covers a wide range of how tread design and other things affect the handling and suitability to intended use. The center rib need on the highway is in the last 20% of the article, but the whole article was very interesting to me.

Tire article link The following cut and paste is about the center rib.

Tread Anatomy — Grooves, Ribs & Blocks

What is a centre rib and what does it do?​

The centre rib is a continuous or semi-continuous strip of rubber running around the middle of the tyre's tread face. It's the backbone of the tread pattern.

What it does:

• Straight-line stability: Provides a constant contact surface for highway tracking
• Steering response: Creates an immediate connection between steering input and tyre reaction
• Even wear: Distributes load evenly across the tread face
• Noise reduction: Continuous ribs produce less noise than segmented blocks

Where you'll see it: Most highway terrain and passenger car tyres have a prominent centre rib. Most mud-terrain tyres deliberately omit it — the void space in the centre is needed for mud traction.

Our Anchee AC808 features a solid centre rib design for quiet highway touring. See how tread anatomy varies across terrain types in our 4WD & terrain tyre guide.

 

[jjrbus]

Because my tires sit and rot and will time out way before they wear out I will not spend big bucks for tires. I much prefer to chat about TPMS and tire maintenance. RV Tire Safety

 

[booster]

Because my tires sit and rot and will time out way before they wear out I will not spend big bucks for tires. I much prefer to chat about TPMS and tire maintenance. RV Tire Safety

I guess I would mostly disagree with all of that except the age out before wear out.

Cheap, low quality, tires and far more prone to things like blowouts as was the case in the Hankooks that came on some new Bs quite a while ago.

IMO, cheap tires almost always have worse ride quality and especially handling characteristics.

Safety is the most important and big part of why we used the oversized, higher load capacity tires on our Roadtrek. It gives us much more safety factor on load capacity.

TPMS and maintenance are required on all tires, cheap or expensive so that is the same for both. Added confidence that they are made and represented properly, plus better ride and handling are very worth the extra cost to us. Tire failures can be very dangerous and I want the best I can between us and road.

When I bought a low cost tire for the spare for our van, the manager at Discount tire said it would OK for a spare and limited use and speed, but he would not use those tires on a max load van

 

[teslasmuse]

I'm really happy with my Cooper Discoverer tires, they have extra tread for the forest service roads, but roll well on the highway and handle great on the snow/ice. I run 80psi in the rear and 60 in the front. I just bought this nifty little TPMS reset tool off of the big A after the tire shop had issues programming it after they rotated my tires, it took me less than 2 minutes to set the sensors and it can tell you which sensors are bad. I used method 5 in the instructions to get into TPS relearn mode on my 2011 Chevy Roadtrek 210 Versatile

https://amzn.to/4wL9od8

 

[Tom 98072]

We use our PW Lexor TS as a daily driver which lives in our garage. We have 33,000+ miles on our Michelin Agiles and they still look new. We mostly drive locally with one highway trip. We normally use “Les Schwab” (a western US tire store chain) however, for the RV we chose to use Costco because we sometimes travel outside Les Schwab’s area and Costcos are everywhere. The one time we had a tire problem we happened to be near a Les Schwab and even though they knew we had not bought the tires from them they still repaired our tire because their computer showed we were “regular Les Schwab customers.”
Two concerns with tires on vehicles stored outside: if possible protect them from the sun and move the vehicle so the tires rotate about 60 to 90 degrees; when running the generator monthly is a great time to do it.

 

[Sensfan-ClassB]

We just got back from a 3000 km trip with our 190-Ranger sitting on a new set of Bridgestone V-steel LT245/75R16 RIB 265s The front tires were set at 68 PSI and the rear tires at 80. I did not observe any significant performance differences between them and the Michelin Defenders that they replaced. I gave the Defenders a modest advantage in the quieter tire competition, and the Bridgestones an advantage in cornering at highway cruise speed, especially on negative grades. The dry highway tracking competition was a draw. Wet tracking was not compared since there was no rain.

 

[TX-Trek]

We also have the Cooper tires on the back, Bridgestone on the front, all have performed well for over 20k miles so far. We use Discount Tire, but as mentioned theres other sources too.
I use that TPMS reset tool mentioned in a previous post, it works fine. I do get the flashing TPMS randomly, with one or more sensors suddenly not reporting. They aren't old and the batteries read good. I suspect the remote entry/TPMS module in the dash is getting flaky but I'm not yet getting into that job, as long as the remote entry continues to work. Just fyi thats a combined module but operates on different frequencies for TPMS and key fob transmit.

 

[teslasmuse]

mine intermittently lose signal, too, but then seem to correct themselves without intervention