Spare Wheel Tyres

[JohnM20]

Hi All
Is it considered as important to change a caravan spare wheel tyre after 5 to 7 years as it is for the caravan's normal running tyres ?
My spare is 6 years old (1207) but has been under the caravan out of the heat and sunlight for all its life, only being taken off its rack to check the pressure and visual condition. There are no cracks between the tread and no crazing on the side walls.
What are your thoughts and advice ?
JohnM

 

[otherclive]

I would change it as you cannot see any corrosion on the steel belts and the consituents added to the rubber to ensure flexibility will not have been kept distributed as its not been used. Look on it as an insurance that you are grateful not to have claimed on.

 

[Guest]

I bought a 'new' certainly unused spare tyre out of the boot of a scrap Mondeo but was already six years old, it was then fitted to the front of my car and used without a second thought and without incident.
I really can't speak for your tyre, that's your choice, or perhaps the choice of a decent tyre fitter?

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

I bought a 'new' certainly unused spare tyre out of the boot of a scrap Mondeo but was already six years old, it was then fitted to the front of my car and used without a second thought and without incident.
I really can't speak for your tyre, that's your choice, or perhaps the choice of a decent tyre fitter?

with all due respect Gary theres a world of difference between a car tyre and one used on a trailer, no one seems to bother about the age of car tyres certainly not the MOT station nor Mr plod, the only criteria is wear or damage, in most cases the car tyre will be well shot before it's sell by date, if you get 3years out of one your lucky, never mind 6 or 7. a trailer tyre is a different animal being on non driven axels the tread will never wear out, however they will deteriorate the rubber gets harder and this is why they crack even if no cracks are visable the tyre may be unsound plus there is the load factor a single axel trailer has only two wheels (obvious I know) so the trailer load is split a 1500kg van will have a load of 700kg on each tyre "minus 100kg noseweight" divided by two,
a car tyre only carries 1/4 of the load so a typical 1500kg car has a load of 375kg or half that of the trailer.
the recommendation is to change the tyres after 5years and this is good practice, even if a spare has never been used it is still old and could have some deterioration leading to failure when used on the van.
I changed all three of mine last year at 5 years old the spare had never been used these were C grade (commercial tyres) and looked perfect but still got changed,

 

[Jaydug]

My view is that since the chances of it being used is low, providing it looks OK, I leave it in the carrier. My current road wheel tyres are three years old. In another three years I will select one of them as the new spare, then get two new tyres fitted. My van being an Avondale has the spare wheel well accessed from the inside and the present spare wheel is pristine, hardly ever seeing the light of day.