Picking up my New Travato 59K

[wincrasher]

Originally Posted by cruising7388

Well, I need more than two hands but that's not because of vehicle mileage. It's because of my mileage.

How do you buy and get a replacement tire delivered to you out in the boonies?
Will Triple A, et al, do this for you?

There aren't many "remote" places anymore. I blew a tire on a Class A (they don't carry spares at all) in West Texas, about as remote as you can get, and they brought me a tire and mounted it in 2 hours. Those tires are fairly exotic size wise (not quite as big as the 18 wheelers).

The 16" tires on the Promasters are also found on pickups, minivans and a some Jeeps, so they are made in great numbers. If they were 17" or 18", I'd be more concerned about finding one.

Some folks in the facebook group going to Alaska are putting a bare tire in a bag and strapping it on the roof just in case they need it. I suppose that may be prudent, but others who's traveled that way have declared that silly too. A plug kit is not a bad thing to have in your spares bag.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by cruising7388

...
How do you buy and get a replacement tire delivered to you out in the boonies?
Will Triple A, et al, do this for you?

Good Sam's network of subcontractors will do it. I lost not one but two tires (faulty stems) in the location pictured below. They didn't have to deliver new tires out there, but they would have, if it had proven to be the solution. As it was, the guy with his tire ambulance (there is such a thing) had to make a 50-mile round trip for the job. And be very resourceful in locating the spot. He manually had to remove those one-ton tires from the rims (no small job), re-stem, re-mount manually, and re-inflate.

After the two got fixed through the emergency call, I drove back to civilization to have the other two stems replaced. They didn't charge very much for the non-emergency part of the job, and I commented on that. The manager said, "Yeah, the real money is in the emergency work. That's where we get paid well by your insurer."

[bobojay]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

Congrats on the rig.

I love unscripted, casual videos. They are usually more revealing than staged productions. What I noticed with this one is that the a/c doesn't seem to be as terribly loud as many of them are. What model is it?

Coleman Mach 10 for the AC unit

[cruising7388]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

The 16" tires on the Promasters are also found on pickups, minivans and a some Jeeps, so they are made in great numbers. If they were 17" or 18", I'd be more concerned about finding one.

How does this work? You sustain a tire failure that's not repairable. You call your roadside service and tell them you need a replacement tire. Do they keep an inventory of different 16 inch tires? Do they go out and buy one and bring it to you? Does the repair truck have the equipment to strip the dead soldier from your wheel and install the replacement on the wheel? If the tire failure occurs at five in the afternoon, when is it likely that you'll be rolling down the road again?

[wincrasher]

Originally Posted by cruising7388

How does this work? You sustain a tire failure that's not repairable. You call your roadside service and tell them you need a replacement tire. Do they keep an inventory of different 16 inch tires? Do they go out and buy one and bring it to you? Does the repair truck have the equipment to strip the dead soldier from your wheel and install the replacement on the wheel? If the tire failure occurs at five in the afternoon, when is it likely that you'll be rolling down the road again?

When you buy a roadside plan like Goodsam or Coachnet, or whatever, they are just a call center. When you call in, they in turn call around to local service providers near your location. People with a tow truck. Most garages with a tow truck also carry tires. Some shops are set up with full service trucks to handle putting a tire on a rim as well as other services. They will select the guy to come out to you based on what you tell them you need.

I've had Coachnet not only bring me out a tire for a Class A (and a rare size at that), take the old one off (over 300 pounds!) and mount the new tire on the rim, balance it, and put it all back together including torquing the huge lug nuts with their on-board air tools. So they can certainly handling what is essentially a pickup truck tire.

Now what you may not get is selection of the exact brand of tire you would prefer (say you want a Michelin). You may have to settle for a cheap brand of tire you'd rather not keep long term. Plus, that tire will not have a bargain price, since you are basically a captive customer.

I can count the number of flats I've had in 35 years of driving on one hand. One of them was this Class A tire in west Texas 400 miles west of Dallas. The other was one I had in my driveway. Two were on an interstate in Florida about 10 years apart. That's it.