2018 Ram Needed New Tires

[Steven@147]

Well crap what a day, our new Ram with only 20K miles needed new tires. We had both front tires with tread separation two weeks apart. These were the original Korean made tires. Plenty of info on them on the Ram forum. Went to Discount Tire and got 6 new Michelin's to get rid of the Korean tires. I've always put on Michelin on my old Ram and they have always been great. That was a chunk of change which had already set me on edge with a new truck with cheap tires to begin with.

Our truck has the Alcoa nice shinny rims, only the rear dual inner rims are black steel. I had put the spare black steel rim on the right front to get the tread separated tire off. Wouldn't you know the guy was dismounting the spare tire from the black steel rim to install the new Michelin tire. Now couldn't he see all the other Alcoa shinny rims? I mean come on he took all the other bright shinny rims off, did he think I was keeping the spare black steel on! The Idiot! I stopped them from totally dismounting the spare tire, they had to rebalance the spare tire because they took the weights off and pulled the valve stem.
Then they went looking all over the truck for the original Alcoa right front rim and tire. Never bothered to look in the bed of the truck, I had to tell them it was in the the bed.

Then when they put the new hard valve stems in, in order to get the hazard warranty, they must have use vice grips to tighten the valve stems because the new hard stems were all marred up with dig marks in them. Double Idiots! On top of that they didn't understand the concept of getting the rear duals on correctly to have the valve stems facing each other and accessed through the same hole in the rim.

I had finally had enough! I told them to put an experienced person on my truck. When finally done I inspected every thing to make sure they did it right. They still got it wrong, had to tell them they left off a valve stem cap. I also inspected the hub caps to make sure they got them back on without crushing the keepers inside.

When we had our Imagine we had it in for wheel bearing service at the dealership, they did such a poor job I had no brakes on the trailer going home. I have dreaded even thinking about taking our Solitude back to the dealership for service.

I just don't have confidence anymore in anyone knowing what they are doing or caring about doing a good job. I am fed up with stupidity and poor sloppy service!

[kevinpo]

Steve,
Sorry to hear about your tire troubles. I have 14,000 on my Ram and wonder if I should just replace the tires before I have to use a spare. Now after reading this I'm afraid to have anyone work on them Perfection Tire is who I use but since we don't drive far it's only once every 5-10 years who knows how poor the help will be nowadays. Yikes!

Regards,
Kevin

[Steven@147]

Steve,
Sorry to hear about your tire troubles. I have 14,000 on my Ram and wonder if I should just replace the tires before I have to use a spare. Now after reading this I'm afraid to have anyone work on them Perfection Tire is who I use but since we don't drive far it's only once every 5-10 years who knows how poor the help will be nowadays. Yikes!

Regards,
Kevin

Hey Kevin. Our truck has 21,000 miles on it. The tires I had were the Korean made, I don't remember the model name of the tire. Couple weeks ago the left front all of a sudden started bouncing and wiggling and Huge vibration in the front. I ordered a replacement from the local Chrysler dealer, thought it was a fluke. Right after I read the stores about these tires on the Ram forum. Seemed like everybody was having trouble with them right at 20,000 miles. I was cautiously optimistic that I could get some more miles out of them. You know, I didn't want to believe all the tire story's?

Well two weeks later we are in Austin, and a minor thumping started in the front, then bam, right front bouncing, wiggling, vibrating the whole front of the truck. Put the spare back on and got it home. Wife said two is too many, not a coincidence. We don't want to be out with the RV traveling and have more tire problems. Pony up $2000 for new tires on a brand new truck.

I had always watched the air pressures very carefully. I wouldn't tell other owners to junk the Korean made tires supplied on Ram 3500s put on by the factory. You'll just have to make up your own mind with what we experienced. Two tires, two weeks apart, at 21,000 miles. Both on the front. Both with tread separation.

Where to get new tires and who to put them on? I don't know, if you trust somebody, great. If not take your pick, take your chances. I noticed while waiting at Discount Tire a Help Wanted sign, $12 / hour. The kid that started working on our truck looked all of 18 years old. Probably fresh out of high school.

We shopped Cosco at $247 / tire but Discount Tire had them for $235 Michelin ATX, H/T2, LT235x80x17, 120R, E1, 60,000 mile tire. Wife said lets get them at Discount Tire we can always get them repaired or replaced with the hazard warranty darn near any place in the country. That's the only reason be bought at Discount Tire. We've always liked Michelin's, always had them on our old Ram, never a problem. Sweet ride back home with the new Ram and its new shoes, smooth as glass. For a 60,000 mile tire the truck rides even better than it did. Owners should go with what tire brand they like.

And here I was worried about the RV tires!!

[kevinpo]

Hi Steve,
I have the Koren Nexen Roadian OEM tires which I believe are made special for Chrysler (read cheapest possible). I really like the Cooper tires on my other truck. They are quiet and very good in the snow. I'm also a big fan of the Michelin brand for cars (I haven't run them on a truck). I will have to look at both of them. I'm usually a long ways from any cell service and in spots quite undesirable to change a tire when camping So I think I will bite the bullet and buy a new set sooner rather than later.

Thank you for taking the time to give a detailed answer.

Regards,
Kevin

[bigb56]

Sadly the phrase "If you want it done right, do it yourself" is more relevant today than ever. I've had it up to my eyeballs with incompetent "professionals" and I can't stand the quick lube places, the only thing they are really proficient at is upselling you. They don't want you watching them and when I do they tell me "Sir there's chairs and coffee and a TV in the waiting room" I've gone back to doing all of my own maintenance not to save money but to have it done right. If I could bust tires I'd be doing that too but I am not going to start that at 63 years old.

[Bamaman]

I've had to buy more new tires over the years than I care to think about--since we've had 3-4 cars at any given time. I've owned every brand of tire on the market.

On my 3/4 ton diesel truck, I've had 2 sets of Firestones, one set of Toyo Open Country and now the Michelin LTX tires bought at Costco. The Firestones and Toyo tires are of equal quality, and they got 40K miles on my truck. The Michelins are going to get substantially more mileage, ride better and they seem to be "rounder". The price differential was about $25-30 each which makes the Michelin's a much better value.

F.C.A. should be ashamed of themselves for putting cheap Nexxun tires on their 3/4 ton and 1 ton trucks. Obviously there's a safety issue to consider, and they've turned their heads to safety on vehicles often towing very heavy RV's, trailers and boats.