A question mainly aimed at our friends who live on mainland Europe.
Where do you buy your caravan tyres from? Let me explain. Because of the age of our van we are running on tyres which are no longer a popular size. (185/70 R13 86T).
Although we haven't bought them yet, in the UK we can toddle down to our local friendly car tyre specialist and order them and they normally take 24 hours to be delivered and fitted.
However, last year when we experienced a tyre issue in Spain and France, the local camp site owners kept referring us to Caravan Dealers and the few car tyre specialists we visited (one was a big one, part of the local LeClerc superstore) politely told us that they couldn't do them, mainly because of the extra load rating.
Does this mean that if we did experience a problem that we couldn't resolve ourselves, it could take many days to fix and will normal car tyre dealers look after us?
Randa

Thank you David. That's very helpful and thanks to the other contributors too.
"our tyres are 185/70 R13 86T. The first place I tried (a Renault dealer) told me that it was 'impossible' to obtain such tyres"
The same size tyres as ours and roughly the same response.
We always check our tyres thoroughly before starting a big trip but due to something or other yet to be resolved, we found ourselves 1000 miles from home on our outward trip, having to use our new spare.
This left us with no alternative than to try and purchase a tyre to replace the defective one, with no success.
Randa

Yes I had thought about that. I know that Pepe did a good piece about alloy wheels. Hmmm, wonder if those 14" Fox Alloys off our son's MK1 Punto that have been taking up space in our garage for 10 years, would fit? (or are caravan alloys special to accommodate for the extra load?)
The other option of course, much to the amusement of many, will be to carry an extra spare tyre only, in the spare wheel rack, as we always carry our spare wheel in the back of the car.
Randa

I'd be inclined to stick with the size you've got. If you change rims in order to change tyre size you'll have to change all three; you'll need to make sure that a different size (or section) will fit without fouling anything and as you know you can't just nick similar alloys off something else unless the offset and the PCD (bolt circle diameter) are correct.

Seems like M. Le Pneu sur la Manche just couldn't be arsed to find tyres in your size. I bet he didn't even try. If you look on any of the continental tyre websites like Oponeo, Tyreleader and PneusOnline there are zillions of tyres in the very size and load rating you need.

There are even a few with a higher load rating than the 86s you've got in case you felt you needed more of a margin.

The other thing is that you can't cover every eventuality by carrying a spare one of everything that might break, seize, fall off or go flat. At some point you have to throw a small caution to the wind

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare!

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Zitat

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Quote Pepe le Pew:- C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare!

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Gare? Guerre? c'est de la folie

Quote: Randa france wrote in post #9

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Gare? Guerre? c'est de la folie

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OK..............

It took a month but you got there in the end.....