" Upgrade " To 15" Wheels?

[jolandua]

I am looking into a new set of tires for my recently acquired '93 Micro-Mini Winnebago (One-ton chassis, 3-L V6, 14" 6-7.25 dually wheels). I only found 2 offerings in full compliance with all specifications regarding load and internal pressure. One, made in China and sold in US as "American Omni" Thunderer R101 offered by Les Schwab (local northwest tire outfit - good reputation) and a second, Yokohama Y356, available (probably from several sources but) from tirerack.com. I am leery of buying chinese-manufactured tires, and the Yokohama's do not get great user ratings, apparently wearing very quickly. Obviously, there's not a big market for these tires in the US.

So . . . I am just beginning to research replacing the wheels/tires with 15" wheels and a properly spec'd tire with the correct diameter (~25" overall dia.), if the combination is feasible, hoping to make a wider variety of tires, with higher load ratings, usable over the long term.

Has anyone attempted this or accomplished it to their own satisfaction? If so, please share the details. Or is this just a really bad idea?

[WME]

Nexen SB802 and Hankook RA08 are well thought of tires in the correct 14" size. (LT185/14C)

15" is an idea, but custom rims are $600-800 a set.

[Maineah]

And you can't swap them around unless you buy 6.

[Derek up North]

Continental Vanco2

Sumitomo SL726

[jolandua]

Thanks to everyone for your replies. I kept looking for 14" tires, settled on the Continental Vanco 2. Interesting that I had already gone through websites of some of the manufacturers suggested in the responses to my original posting, including Continental, but no website presented a usable tire until I had the trade name, i.e. "Vanco 2". I was able to get the Continentals for only ~ $10 more than the American Omnis when shipping, etc. was included. Found the deal through Discount Tires, which is more or less a nation-wide outfit, so very glad to have information that helped me loop through again to get the correct rubber.

[zero]

So . . . I am just beginning to research replacing the wheels/tires with 15" wheels and a properly spec'd tire with the correct diameter (~25" overall dia.), if the combination is feasible, hoping to make a wider variety of tires, with higher load ratings, usable over the long term.

Has anyone attempted this or accomplished it to their own satisfaction? If so, please share the details. Or is this just a really bad idea?

Seems like a lot or work and expense with little to no gain. If you want the RV to have the same ride-height and tire-circumference - 15" tires gives less capacity then 14" unless you go wider. Small 8-ply rated 15" are not very common either.

I've got two Toyota RVs with Chinese or Malaysian tires. NO complaints. Achilles on one and Federal on the other. No problem finding many choices of 8-ply rated 185R-14C-D tires once I was able to convince dealers they actually existed. Biggest hurdle was getting the tire-seller to actually call their suppliers and ask. Here in northern Michigan - in a very rural area - I had my choice of 6 different brands. I chose Federal Ecovan commercial tires because they were near the cheapest and have a great reputation in Europe when used on commercial vans. Cost me $62 each. I've got 6000 miles on them so far and all has been fine. 25.6" diameter and rated for 1763 lbs each when used as duallies. Way more than any rear of a Toyota RV is going to surpass. Federal also sells an 8-ply rated 195R-14C-D that is 27.1" diameter and rated 1984 lbs. for each tire when used on dually setups. Also a 205R-14C-D that is 26.8" and rated 2149 lbs. (with duals) and a 215R-14C-D that is 27.6" and rated 2336 lbs (with duals).