[luvmymanor1]

Originally Posted by ShrimpBurrito

Should the tires be adequate? Yes. Are they? Obviously not, at least when pushed to their limits in terms of age, weight carried, and heat. Getting tires with higher weight capacities simply reduces risk, that's all. As I said before, I don't see that higher rated tires masks any problems, as I'm not carrying any additional weight I hadn't carried before.



There are alot of variables when taking a weigh, like whether you were carrying any water, was the TM loaded for camping, were there any people in the TV, etc. But assuming the Toyota Sienna is about 4,000 lbs, your TM weighs 3,500 lbs. That's probably among the lowest TM weights recorded here, so if that really is the weight, you probably can't do much better. But you could easily be at 4,000 lbs, and that is right about at the max for the tires.

Tongue weight can be measured at any scale by subtracting the TM axle weight from the TM total weight (when unhitched from the TV). You can also measure this with a bathroom scale and a fulcrum, a method described here on the forum which you can find using the Search tool.

I highly recommend a TPMS system -- I use the TST brand. It's not a fail safe, but is simply another tool in helping you identify a problem, which reduces the risk of a blowout.

Your year TM may not need a lift kit to take 15" wheels. In the newer models, and perhaps someone here can comment on when the factory made this change, they installed an axle with the torsion arms set at a higher angle, giving the same lift as the lift kit. A call to the factory would answer it for sure. But the lift kit is simply a piece of 2" tubular steel bolted in between the axle and frame. You could find a place along the road that would sell you a few sections and drill some holes in it, but if it were me, I'd order it from the factory for ~$40 and have them Fedex/UPS it to a Fedex/UPS location down the road where they will hold it for you for pickup. It is easy to install -- all you need is a jack and some wrenches. But since you'd only get it if you were getting 15" wheels, I would just ask the tire shop to install it for you. Since they're removing the wheels anyway, it should only take them an additional 20-30 min to install the lift.

When I was in your shoes last year, I reduced my stress level significantly by acknowledging the fact that the tires were going to delay my trip 1-2 days, and that I was going to spend that time addressing the problem in a repair shop, on the phone, etc. Once I succumbed to that realization, I was able to relax alot more.

Dave

hey thanks for explaining it thourougly for me and I see what you are saying... I'd rather wait and get the lift kit from factory like you said and I'd actually rather do it all myself. however, since I'm on the road and don't have any tools with me except a drill and a pair of pliars that aint gonna happen.

as for the weight. my toyota dry weight is about 4400 and my TM fully loaded is about 3,100-3,200 believe it or not. DW and I went through some painstaking measures to try and reduce weight as much as we can. we really don't have much on board and are real careful to keep junk out of the TM at all stops. we burn all firewood or give it away if we got some left over. we don't carry it on board. we don'tt boodock so we never needed to fill the water holding tank so thats always empty. we make sure to dump befor we get on the road and keep the water vales open so all water drains out. having said that we weighed it when we went on a two week trip fully loaded not the month long one. so I'm sure that weigh went up but my best guess is not by more than 100 lbs. everything on board is miniature sized and were ok with this. the only thing we miss is our bikes but taking four bikes would drastically change our weight so they had to be left behind on this trip.