Aluminum Wheel for spare tire

[Cosmik Debris]

My 2013 Eagle 21.9 came with a plain white steel wheel for the spare tire. Now, if you wanted to also bring that tire into the tire rotation, how would that look? If you have a flat on the road you'd have to swap it twice, once to put the spare on, then again to put the repaired tire back. Didn't like either of these scenarios so went looking for another matching wheel. My local Jayco dealer said another matching wheel was just over $400! What? So I found the manufacturer (sendel) and emailed them for the closest dealer to me. Contacted them and was quoted $98. Shipped to me (Burley Idaho to Lolo Montana) made the total cost about $117.
Here is their site, in case anyone else is looking.
http://www.customtrailerwheels.com/16-Aluminum-Type-T03-Split-Spoke-Trailer-Wheel-6-Hole_p_77.html

 

[pmfinnegan2]

Can you attach pictures of how you mounted this to the spare tire carrier? It is more bulky and doesn't have the flat surface like the white rims so I was wondering how it gets mounted

 

[Paulx213]

Can't remember the last time I had a flat on a car and I've never had one on a trailer. Are you sure it's worth spending money on?

 

[Dwilcox]

I have had 5 blowouts. All tires checked every 2 hours while traveling, Not over 5 years old, all 4 marathon that were stock and a Trailermaster. Trailer is never close to max weight. (Check on CAT scale twice a year.) Of course there was tire to fender bump due to not enough clearance that took Jayco several years to address so that explains the first 4. Last one was after the axle fix. Don't know if it was a blow out or went flat and beat it self to death on the trailer. I am going to invest in a tire pressure monitoring system before we start traveling this year.

 

[Msturtz]

Can't remember the last time I had a flat on a car and I've never had one on a trailer. Are you sure it's worth spending money on?

We had 4 flats in two years so the spare is mandatory!

 

[Flyrotor-JAY]

Never had a flat with my camp trailers, BUT.... I would never be without a spare tire,

Come to think of it, I have never had a claim on my insurance either, but again, I would never go without that,

It all goes hand in hand if you ask me.

 

[Paulx213]

We had 4 flats in two years so the spare is mandatory!

I didn't mean you shouldn't have a spare. I was just wondering if it was worth the extra money to buy a fancy aluminium rim to replace the stock steel spare.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Can you attach pictures of how you mounted this to the spare tire carrier? It is more bulky and doesn't have the flat surface like the white rims so I was wondering how it gets mounted

My Eagle 5er has the under-cabin crank down spare holder so it went right back up where the old one lived. One thing I also did was, after seeing the oversized hole cut in the underbody cover material for the spare letdown cable, I placed a large piece of foam pad (picture a camping pad) above the spare to crank up against the underside. I was worried that road spray and critters would find entrance there. The pad may also come in handy when kneeling beside the RV changing a tire.
As far as whether it's worth it or not, I've only had one flat, on a previous RV, and had to change the tire twice that day, once to get going and again to put the spare back. It's then that I realized that the spare stays virtually new it's whole life. I can now put it into the tire rotation.

 

[Msturtz]

I would keep my money and not spend it on an aluminum spare. The only drawback is you can't use the tire in your rotation. My experience has been that the tires "age out" before they "wear out" so having a spare in the rotation is less important. We put well over 50,000 miles on our TT in 9 years.

 

[Redhorse 823]

For the same money, replace the 4 with steel, Then they would all match.
Then you could sell the aluminum rims and have $400 for other mods...
Nah...who am I kidding?

 

[SkyBound]

Are the benefits of aluminum wheels purely cosmetic? (excluding the minimal weight savings)

 

[Msturtz]

There is significant weight savings. I picked up the steel wheels and tires an then the aluminum ones I just got wow what a difference! I haven't weighed them yet but it seems like 1/2 the weight.

 

[SkyBound]

Fair enough, but even so it's not really THAT much when considering a 5000-8000lb trailer... I'm thinking like 100lbs total at best for a dual axle.

The reason I ask is that I recall a member on here having issues with his aluminum wheels cracking, so there would need to be some serious benefits for me to consider paying extra for that option.

 

[Msturtz]

I was talking about my motorhome steel vs aluminum. I don't know about the trailer wheels. They are much smaller.