Those are car tyres rather than the usual van (as in delivery van) tyres which are much more commonly fitted to 14" caravan wheels.

The most frequently-used tyre size for 14" caravan wheels is 185/R14C 102/104N. The C is short for Commercial, as in delivery van. 102 (or 104) is the load capacity, and N is the speed rating.

A pair of those would be absolutely fine, and there's loads of choice.

It's not that you can't use car tyres, but car tyres tend not to have as high a load rating as commercial tyres which is probably why you're finding it more difficult to get exact matches for what you've got on there now.

The other thing is that car tyres have an unnecessarily high speed rating when used on a caravan. An N rating is safe up to 87mph, which is plenty for a caravan, but there are very few cars on the road these days that wouldn't top 87mph with impunity.

You'll probably pay a little bit more for 185/R14Cs than for 190/70R14s, but the advantage of spending that bit extra is that not only have you got a good margin as far as load rating is concerned, you'll find subsequent replacements much easier to source.

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Here's a typical load rating chart. https://www.ctyres.co.uk/general/load-index

it is recommended that the tyre rating is 10% greater than half your eribas maximum load.

eg. Our middle aged Troll has a maximum of 1000 kg (13" wheels), therefore each wheel takes 500kg, x 10% = 550 rating. So our van should use a rating above 550, so a minimum of 88 load rating should be used.

However, as an Eriba has very basic suspension, the tyre is used to help take the strain so it isn't advisable to go mad and get a tyre that is massively over rated as the side walls will be far stiffer and will not help the suspension issues.

As I write this I start to wonder if a harder riding Eriba is part of the cupboard door problem because in actual fact, we still use the same size tyre that was fitted to our van from new which only has a load rating of 86 (530kg) which is only 6% greater than half the load. However, we don't seem to suffer from any of the hard ride complaints.

Randa

From what's been discussed in the past, I think it was Pete (Pepe le Pew) who suggested that if your load rating is a tad too much then carry less air pressure in the tyres to compensate.

He's the best one to comment on that as he had a heavier troll than I do.

Randa

Tyres are something that have interested me, since many moons ago, in another galaxy I started a post about tyre pressures and my pursuit to get some sense out of Hymer. They subsequently admitted the owners manual was wrong and issued a correction table.
Tyre safe have also been very useful and I have hopefully attached there literature, that I keep a copy of in the van. As noted above same size tyres can have different load ratings and vastly different pressure requirements depending upon whether they are commercial or car tyres. Either of these can be fitted to your Eriba and hence frequent confusion on this issue. My advise is read the attachment and things will become far clearer.
I have subsequently replaced tyres on another van and used e-tyres from memory. They advised like others that you do not go mad on the load rating and keep to/within the 10% extra due to potentially reducing your suspension qualities. A non premium tyre was recommended as you are not interested in high speeds or on the edge cornering qualities. They also checked on the manufacture date before advising on a tyre choice in order I got as many years use as possible

Colin

EDIT - this is the same one as Niv2 has posted link to above.

I've got to be a bit careful here because I'm not a expert - not by a long way - and I couldn't afford even a halfway decent brief if someone did what I suggested, broke something important and decided to take me to the cleaners.

I've tried to apply a mixture of what I have learned along with what seems to be common sense.

In Mr Niv's case, I can't see that there's any reason to use 195 width tyres unless he has a 195 spare and doesn't want to buy three new tyres rather than just the two.

As far as I'm aware the 'standard' Troll tyre is a 185/R14C.

I reckon 104/106 load-rated tyres is overkill. 104 has a load rating of 900kg; i.e. a total load capacity of 1800kg, which is 50% more than the caravan's limit. It seems reasonable to assume that the extra capacity is made up in the construction of the tyre, part of which is the stiffness of the sidewalls. The suspension on these vans is pretty rudimentary, and because of that, the flexing of the sidewall is an integral part of the suspension's ability to absorb bumps.

Same kind of thing as a Formula I car. Their suspension has next-to-no travel and the tyre sidewalls are very tall to allow them to absorb the shocks.

If they had the kind of glorified rubber band stretched round a chrome dustbin lid that you see on your average pimp's blacked-out BMW X5, Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes would shake itself to bits in no time.

I agree with what Roger says in that you can compensate for the increased stiffness of a heavy-duty tyre by reducing the pressure, but clearly there's only so far you can go with that; let them down too much and they'll wear poorly and get hot.

It seems to me to be more sensible to go for a tyre with a somewhat lower rating (while still offering a decent margin) as a compromise.

I ended up with 185R14 100Ns on our 1200kg Troll. At 800 kg per wheel - 1600kg total - the 100s have stacks of spare load capacity. Now admittedly my choice was partly driven by me wanting to buy 'decent' tyres rather than a pair of Wangling Super Arrow Hi-Cornering Prawn Foo Yungs, and the Uniroyal ones I did get weren't available in the higher 102 rating that the ones I replaced had.

For what it's worth, I run those tyres at about 44psi. That isn't quite as high as the pressure charts suggest, but, again, it seems to me to be a reasonable compromise.

There's no suggestion that that pressure is too low; if they were mushy they'd get hot (which they don't) or wear the shoulders of the tread (which they don't either). And I'm disinclined to blow them up any more without any evidence whatsoever that I should be, not least because I don't really want to arrive on site with the floor of the van strewn with the ironmongery which had been holding it all together and all the doors askew.

I'm not sure any of that helps, but it's the best I can muster.

P.S. Whatever tyres you fit, get them balanced. There's no reason not to. Just because you can't feel them vibrating like a clapped-out spin dryer doesn't mean that they aren't, and all the undersized and wonky screws holding your caravan insides together don't need any extra help in coming adrift.

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This is a question I often ask myself. As I said above, our tyre rating is 86 and is the same spec as when the van was new in 1999.

I think that if I had the opportunity I would have gone up a notch or two to about 88 but it would appear that tyre manufacturers don't supply every rating in the book and, in my case, the nearest rating I could find above 86 was 90.

I'm not suggesting for one minute that you should go down the same road as I did and fit original spec tyres but it is food for thought.

Randa